Jibondo Island, Mafia

About an hour’s sail south of Chole, Jibondo Island is the most traditional of the archipelago’s settlements, and most of its two thousand inhabitants engage in fishing, especially for sharks, and octopus-baiting. 

Jibondo is renowned as a boat-building centre, with much of the wood coming from forests around mainland Kilwa. In Jibondo’s village centre, look for the carved door frame on the mosque, said to come from the old settlement at Kua on Juani.