Zanzibar Channel km south of Dar es Salaam. In 2015, the 29km solo swim across the Zanzibar Channel starting at the Pungume Sandbank was completed in 9 hrs 1 minute by Jean Craven (SA) , Robert Dunford (Kenya), Megan Harrington Johnson (SA), Samantha Whelpton (SA) and Emil Berning (SA) Zanzibar Channel The Zanzibar Channel is a strait in south-eastern Africa, separating the island of Unguja (also known as Zanzibar) from mainland Tanzania. The channel is 120 km long and 29-37 km wide, with depth varying from a few dozen metres (in the centre) to a few hundred metres to the north and
History of Zanzibar sons struggled over the succession. On April 6, 1861, Zanzibar and Oman were divided into two separate principalities. Sayyid Majid bin Said Al-Busaid (1834/5–1870), his sixth son, became the Sultan of Zanzibar, while the third son, Sayyid Thuwaini bin Said al-Said, became the Sultan of Oman. Accounts by visitors to Zanzibar often emphasize the outward beauty of the place. The British explorer Richard Francis Burton described Zanzibar in 1856 as: "Earth, sea and sky, all seemed wrapped in a soft and sensuous repose...The sea of purist sapphire, which had not parted with its blue rays to the atmosphere...lay looking...under a