“Two miles of golden sand and dunes with nothing but open Atlantic in front of it — even in August you can walk the whole length and barely see another soul.”
On a calm day, the sand runs flat and pale for two miles and the only sound is the sea pulling back over itself, again and again. Sit in the dunes with a flask and you can lose an hour without trying to. Turn up when a westerly's blowing, though, and it's a different place entirely — spray torn off the wave tops, the wind pushing you sideways, sand streaming low across the beach like smoke. Stand at the tideline in that and you'll understand exactly why sailors feared this coast for centuries: it's beautiful, and it means business, sometimes within the same afternoon.
- One of Islay's most photographed beaches
- Spectacular sunsets
- Kilchoman Distillery and café right at the car park
- DANGER: strong rip currents — not safe for swimming
On the morning of 6 October 1918, in the middle of a Force 11 storm, two troopships carrying American soldiers home from the war collided just off this coast. HMS Otranto, holed below the waterline by HMS Kashmir, lost power and drifted helplessly towards Islay's cliffs. The destroyer HMS Mounsey pulled several hundred men to safety before the swell made further rescue impossible — but when Otranto finally broke apart on Old Women's Reef, at the mouth of the bay, only a handful of those still aboard reached shore alive. Islanders spent days recovering bodies from the beach; 316 American servicemen were buried on Islay, most of them still resting in the small military cemetery above the bay today. It remains the worst Allied troopship disaster of the First World War. Her dead are remembered together with those of the Tuscania, torpedoed off the Oa the previous February, at the American Monument & Mull of Oa Circular, raised by the American Red Cross in 1920 on the far side of the island.
The dunes here are part of the Rinns of Islay's protected machair, and one of the island's best spots for chough — look for them feeding in the short turf from July through to the following spring. Corncrakes call from the surrounding grassland from late April to September, though you're far more likely to hear their rasping call than spot one. Golden eagles are regularly seen along this stretch of coast too.
This is one of the west coast's "drowning beaches," alongside Saligo Bay and Sanaigmore — not a bay for swimming. The water can look calm on the surface, but strong rip currents and undertows here have caused real rescues, including fatalities, and sea temperatures stay cold year-round (roughly 9–12°C) even in summer. Walk it, photograph it, watch the sunset from the dunes — just stay out of the water. Check live tide times before a longer walk along the beach. Check live tide times →