Mafia Island Diving, founded in 2012, is the only owner-managed dive centre on Mafia Island, Tanzania's oldest and largest marine protected area, about 150km south of Zanzibar. Its leaders bring a combined 20 years of scuba experience in East Africa, and the team is hired and trained locally, from snorkel guide up to Divemaster. The centre offers the full range of PADI and SSI courses alongside guided diving from the shore, inside Chole Bay's coral-rich reefs, and, in season, outside the bay for advanced divers, plus snorkeling and seasonal turtle, whale shark and humpback whale watching trips. All excursions run on traditional dhows, dive groups are capped at four divers per guide, and the centre was named Tanzania's Diving Company of the Year by the Luxury Travel Guide in 2019 following five consecutive years of top TripAdvisor reviews.