The Reef - 1

A fringing reef runs along much of the coast of East Africa - this satellite picture shows it about a mile off the beach at Nyali, just to the north of Mombasa. While the sea floor drops steeply away on the ocean side of the reef, on the land side a shallow lagoon separates it from white-sand beaches formed of the pulverised remains of the shelled creatures that inhabit it.

This picture, taken from a beach on the east coast of Zanzibar, looks across the lagoon to the line of white surf along the horizon where the ocean breaks on the whaleback of the reef.

At low tide, particularly at springs, it's possible to walk out across the coral bottom of the lagoon searching for....

....the many inhabitants of the reef, not all of them friendly.

When we knew this reef back in the '50s and 60s, the marine life on it was prolific and we thought nothing of collecting as many shells as we could find, a few of which I've kept as mementoes of those long-lost days, but it leaves me in no position to criticise those local people who have since stripped the reef of anything that can be sold to tourists. So, when we visited the reefs of Tanzania a few years ago, we were shocked at the change.