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By Sanjana Kamat
- Goa Guide
- 6 min read
- 3 comments
Every guide to this coast lists the same four beaches, and by ten in the morning all four are full. The coves below are not secret — locals have used them for decades — they are simply awkward enough to reach that the crowd never bothers.
The rule for all of them is the same: leave before seven. The light is better, the sea is glass, and you will have an hour or two before anyone else works out where you went. Reception will pack you a breakfast the night before if you ask, and the tender can drop you at three of the seven.
Start with the ones you can walk to
Two of the seven are within forty minutes on foot from the resort gate, along the old track that runs north below the road. Wear something with a sole — the last stretch is loose scree and there is no handrail.
- Kalacha, twenty-five minutes north, with black sand and one beach shack that opens at eleven.
- Ozran’s northern rocks, past the fish shacks, where the stone flattens into natural platforms.
- Sweet Lake, reachable only by water, where a freshwater stream meets the sea and the sand turns dark.
The best hour on this coast is the one between six and seven in the morning. Nobody is awake, the ferries have not started, and the water does not move at all.
What to take
There is no shade at any of them after nine, and no water at five of the seven. Take more than you think, take shoes you can swim in, and take cash for the beach shack at Kalacha, which has never accepted a card and shows no sign of starting.
If you would rather not organise it yourself, Vivek at the concierge desk runs a boat most mornings that takes six people to the three water-access coves and brings you back for lunch. It costs nothing beyond the fuel share.
One to avoid
Everyone will tell you about the cove below the lighthouse. It is genuinely beautiful and genuinely dangerous — the current runs hard around the point from mid-morning and the coastguard pulls someone out most seasons. Look at it from the road.
Born in Assagao and has swum all seven of these since she was six. She writes the Goa guides here, and will happily draw you a map at the front desk if you ask before breakfast.
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Did Kalacha on your advice and had it entirely to ourselves until about nine. The scree at the end is no joke though — worth repeating the bit about shoes.
Glad it worked. We keep a box of old trainers by the concierge desk for exactly that stretch — ask next time and save your own.
Took the boat with Vivek instead of walking and it was the best morning of the trip. Three coves, back by one, and he knows which one has shade at what hour.