Leven Bank

A remote oceanic seamount rising from 600 m to within 18 m of the surface in the Zanzibar Channel, Leven Bank is one of East Africa's few true blue-water pelagic dives and the most powerful wildlife encounter in the Zanzibar archipelago. Named after the HMS Leven survey ship, the bank creates a powerful upwelling that concentrates plankton, which in turn attracts silky sharks, great hammerheads, dogtooth tuna and vast schools of rainbow runners that spiral through the water column in tight cylinders. The seamount top itself is encrusted with large sea fans and black coral, and aggregations of spawning groupers gather here in the austral winter making Leven Bank one of the critical reef fish nurseries for the entire Zanzibar Channel.