Beaches along Shriwardhan coast

The Shriwardhan taluka of Raigad district is entirely located along the Arabian Sea coastline beginning from Dighi village in the north to Harihareshwar village in the south. Until quite recently barring Diveagar and Harihareshwar, the beaches were unknown to tourist (even those too were famous only because of historic temples). Although the beaches are still good, but they could soon become non-visit material due to port activities and tourist commercialization.

Despite a major part of the coastline being rocky or cliff filled, there are several sandy seashores. Am listing down the places I visited although there are quite a few more (Dighi, Sarve, Velas & Harihareshwar were skipped).

Adgaon Beach

Unexplored Murud: Khoda Beach & Jetty

Khoda is a small village between Murud-Janjira and Rajpur. To reach proceed on the way to Janjira fort, and just as you cross the bridge you will come to a village. Take a left or ask someone for directions to the jetty and you'll reach there. The beach/jetty overlooks the Janjira fort too.

Guhagar Beach, Ratnagiri

After our stay in Dapoli, we moved towards Guhagar using the ferry service at Dabhol. This ferry saves you almost 50 km road and since it carries vehicles too, there can be nothing better than that.

Guahagar is a beach facing small town, very little commercialized and even in this peak season had only a few tourists.

We reached the place in afternoon and had no bookings done for stay; praying that we get some place to stay.
Maybe because it was a Monday, we got two dormitories in an managed MTDC house named Kinara. The cost is a pretty decent one of Rs 200 per head for stay. Good that we could explore our options for food on our own.

Fields behind our Hotel:

Around Dapoli – Murud & Ladghar beaches

The Travel

Dapoli is a town in Ratnagiri district. It is somewhat of a hill station as it is some height above sea-level. It is not exactly at the sea but very close to a number of beaches within 10-15 kms.

Following is the route undertaken from Vashi. Significant towns are mentioned:
Vashi -> Mangaon -> Lonere Fata -> Goregaon -> Ambet -> Mandangad -> Kherdi -> Dapoli

The drive after Lonere Fata is great. The views are scenic, there are hardly any other vehicles around and the only points of congestion are through some large villages. Much of the path is through twists and turns of hills, but the roads are good and you are usually the only person driving around.


Stay at Aryawarta

As far as location and connectivity is concerned this is a great place to live. It is nearby to the Dapoli S.T. Depot.
Situated on a hill, you get to have your own spacious bungalows with huge gardens around it.

Unexplored Murud: Northern Part of Murud Beach

It's close to impossible that anyone who has been to Murud has missed it's beach. The Beach is about 2-3 kms in length flanked by cliffs with the Nawab's  Palace to the north and the Ekdaria river to the south.

However, most of the people visit the southern and central part of the beach; while ignoring th north. The main reason is because most places of stay and eateries are located there.
Good for me, I usually find this stretch to be empty even if its some holiday weekend.
I went to this beach just about at sunrise time. Sunrise is delayed thanks to the presence of a couple of hills in the east.

Alibaug Beach & Kolaba Fort

A wedding in Alibaug led to this planning. Although, I had planned to visit 3-4 beaches in that area, things always go wrong (Surprisingly in US, planning was damn accurate to a few minutes).

First, driver came late (9.30 am instead of planned 7 am).

Secondly, not everyone was so interested (after all it was a wedding).

Alibaug beach

Somewhat weird beach. The continental shelf is extremely flat, no noticeable slope. I think even if you go 4-5 kms from the coast, the depth won't be more than a metre.

When we reached, it was high tide and the water was nearly till the coast. We decided we'll go in water after playing for sometime.

Kashid saved the day

You can call it a day - When almost everything went wrong. We had a four day long weekend and I had suggested we goto Murud. The original plan was to visit Murud fort and beach in a 1 day trip. But all planning went haywire.
As per plan:
06.45: Vashi
10.15: Murud (11.00 at the worst case)
Had we been on track, things would have been fine.


Chronology of Travel
07.30: Vashi ( Full 45 mins delay)



08.00: Beyond Panvel. Stopped for breakfast


08:40: Restarted journey. This long break was going to cost dearly.
09.30: Reached Pen. Even with the A.C., the heat was becoming unbearable.
10.15: Reached Alibaug. By this time everyone in the backseat was thoroughly "basking" in the sun.

Rev Danda: The fortified town: remains of the walls

Sea near Rev Danda:

Sea near Chaul village with Chaul fort of the hill

10.50: Stopped at Petrol Pump. Took 20 mins. break here.




12.15: Finally at Rajpuri village, near Murud fort. (Nearly 2 hours behind schedule.)
14.00: Back to Murud for lunch.
15.00: On Murud beach.
15.15: Off from Murud.
15.45: At Kashid beach.
18.30: Off from Kashid.
21.30: Dining at Belapur.
22.00: Reached Vashi.

Doordarshan of Murud fort


The Murud fort rests in the Arabian sea; hence you require a ferry from Rajpur village to reach the same. On Fridays, the ferry service is closed between 12.00 - 14.00 due to prayers. Effectively it means you can only see the fort if you come before 11.00 or after 15.00.
There are no facilities for eating; the lone hotel out there is extremely poor in service. We wasted 1 hour for food; but the huge surge in visitors coupled with shortage of manpower ensured that we stayed hungry.
So, we dropped the plan for fort and returned back to Murud for food. Whatever we saw of the fort was from the Rajpur wharf and jetty.


Rajpur beach:


Rajpur village:


Food, Food, Food....
The 3 hour break in ferry service matched by the spate of tourists ensured that all luncheon options in Murud were packed way beyond capacity.
This guaranteed that we would not get to eat food for atleast 1 hour. The hunger would surely become unbearable by then. The only option - roadside fastfood.
Zankhana, Swati and me were contended with Omlette-Pav. Others with Vada Pav, Juices, Milkshakes and Baraf-golas.

Tanmay in deep thought:

Short stint at Murud beach

Thanks to the hordes of tourists, oil exploration by Reliance and zero maintainence by municipality, the beach is going the Alibaug way. The sand has mostly turned blackish with traces of oil. This has also led to change in the sea water colour. And all this when Reliance is only "exploring" - searching for oil. If they really start extracting, I doubt any beaches in Konkan will survive.
Abbas of beach with the Kasa fort to his right:

Deciding on going to Kashid:

Designs in the sand:

Dead Octopus, I think


Kashid beach - the day saviour
By now, most were turned off by the events of the day. No fort no beach.....hence decided on Kashid.




We reached Kashid @ 15.45. By 16.00, me and Swati were already in the sea. The rest (except Zank), trickled one by one. Zank didn't have spare clothing like Amit; so she didn't venture out. Amit came out anyways.
Kashid beach has mostly white sand; which shows it is largely made up of a crushed powder of sea shells. The sand grains are thick; thus the beach is somewhat young.
The unique thing that I experienced at this beach was the pull that the receding waves exerted; trying to drag you in the sea. The source of the pull is largely the 35 degrees inclination of the beach towards the sea.



We enjoyed a lot in the sea with Husain and me dragging everyone else inside. I think it was only we too, who submerged many a times entirely in the water primarily due to laying in the water.
Swati, Gayatri, Pritisha and Abbas did not venture out too ahead. Amit and Tanmay where somewhat ahead inside.
Zank was lazing on the beach bed all alone. I think the travel, the heat and the food had turned her off the most. Had to bring her to the sea. Although she barely came inside the water, she was the only one who clicked. Thanks to her we had photographs of Kashid.

Engravings in the sand:


Before departing from Kashid.....jst didn't feel like returning