If you want to explore more of costal culture and history, take a day trip to Mombasa, which includes historic sites, the Bamburi Nature Trail, craft markets, and a lunch cruise on the ‘Tamarind Dhow’, which plies the water around Mombasa Island. Dhows have been sailing into the old harbour, at Mombasa, since trading first began, some 4,000 years ago and certainly since the time of King Solomon and the Queen on Sheba.

Anyone can ride the ‘Simba Ka Zaa’ a beautiful dhow which looks likes she is lined in red thanks to the luscious red cushions that pad her decks and the wonderful Persian carpet which lays in the centre; allowing those who ride her to sit in cross legged contemplation of exotic cargoes and monsoon blown voyages long since past. The ‘Simba Ka Zaa’ sails each afternoon between 3:30-6:00pm. She welcomes 50 passengers with ease and as you set sail with, perhaps, some gentle Mozart playing the background, you will be offered a traditional fresh ‘madafu’ drink, some chilled wine or ice cold beer and a basket of succulent ‘bitings’ on which to nibble as you float away on the wings of the breeze.

Mombasa is rich in history it has the 16th Century Fort Jesus whose massive bastions glower over Mombasa creek, the scene of centuries of battle between Omani sultans and Portuguese grandees and perhaps one of the most bloodied and anguished forts in African History. In the shadow of the fort is the ‘Old Town of Mombasa’ whose narrow alleys wend around beneath fretwork-enclosed balconies from which veiled Swahili maidens once peeped down upon their suitors and giggled behind their henna-painted hands.