From ancient Arabic writings, we know that the Arabuko forest stretched from just outside Malindi almost to Kilifi and was populated by wild beasts, poisonous snakes (cobra especially) and elephants, who often came down to unexplored beaches and bays protected by barrier Reef.
There were no docks for ships, but dangerous "dry" so to Kilifi was good habit for travelers, surf off the coast until he glimpsed the Bay of Malindi.
Around 1300, the Arab community of Gede town, of which the ruins still remain today business watches, makes a way in the forest in order to reach an outlet to the sea, in the Watamu Bay.
From there he developed a fishing village and the Arabs now established on the coast mingled with the local Giriama, creating a Bajun community that began flourishing boat trade with Lamu and Takaungu.
No other still ventured in Watamu until the early twentieth century, when the British, after establishing the headquarters of the colony in Mombasa and he arranged the secondment of Malindi, right deforesting the road to get to a fishing village, they discovered that paradise .
In 1937 an Irish family, the Flynns, during an exploration by boat, was shipwrecked and according to legend was tossed by the waves at the Turtle Bay.
There they lived for a few months inside their overturned boat, using it as a home, first to build a shack on the beach.
Around 1950, the British decided to carve up part of Watamu beach (so named because of the kindness of the local people, as watu tamu, "sweet people") donating fifty plots of one acre each to as many compatriots, widening the road from Mombasa-Malindi main director.
Since then the British colonists discovered a fantastic unspoilt location for deep sea fishing, thanks to its currents and the ecosystem of the Mida Creek. Even the great writer Ernest Hemingway came to fish here.
Before independence of Kenya we were already a few small hotels, including the current Ocean Sports Beach Club, built in 1951.
More recently, they were built on the bay of Watamu Beach.
In 1968 in Watamu it was established the National Marine Park and the marine reserve, in 1979 the area was declared a protected area for marine biosphere by the United Nations.