The water at South End runs gin-clear over ribbed sand, warming in the shallows until it feels like bathwater by mid-morning. You'll wade out thirty metres and still find bottom, watching small fish dart between patches of seagrass that sway with the current. Driftwood logs, bleached bone-white by sun and salt, scatter the high-tide line—some large enough to sit on while you towel off and watch the occasional fishing boat motor past the headland.
“South End is the only publicly recognized named beach on Curtis Island, offering rare island solitude within sight of an industrial coast.”
Credit: FlickrKing tide and a swell
This is Curtis Island's named beach, the one locals mention when mainlanders ask where to anchor for lunch. There's no café, no patrol flags, no footpath—just a crescent of sand backed by coastal heath that hums with bees in spring. The island itself is industrial on its northern tip, but South End remains untouched, its shoreline curving gently toward rocky outcrops where cormorants spread their wings to dry.
You'll share the sand with perhaps two other boats on a busy Saturday, fewer on weekdays. Pack everything in—water, shade, snacks—and pack it out. The reward is a few hours on a beach that feels borrowed from another century, where the only decision is whether to swim now or wait until the tide shifts and reveals even more sand to explore barefoot.
