The Manta Resort in Tanzania has joined a very short list of hotels that can legitimately claim to have underwater hotel rooms.
On November 1, 2013, the swank Manta, a 17-room resort on Pemba island (part of the Zanzibar Archipelago), unveiled a bedroom that sits 4m (13 feet) under the surface of the Indian Ocean. It is part of a three-story suite that floats 250m (820 feet) offshore in “the blue hole,” a circular clearing within a coral reef.
The bedroom has eight windows that allow for 24-hour viewing of critters such as trumpet fish, squid and octopus. At night, spotlights help attract and illuminate sea life. The rest of the suite consists of a bathroom and lounge at water level, and a sun deck on the rooftop.
The entire structure was designed by Swedish artist Mikael Genberg, who also constructed the structurally similar Utter Inn in Sweden’s Lake Malaren. For this project, he sought a more remote location with clearer waters, and found it off Pemba’s coast in the form of measuring about 50m in diameter. The open space made it the ideal location to anchor the new underwater structure.
