Traigh na Cille

The Secret Black Beach

I wasn’t sure I’d ever find the place again. Lots had happened over the past couple of decades, and my location notes were lost to me. But the secret beach was as fresh as ever in my mind. As we drove over a tiny humpbacked bridge that crossed an oaken gorge I got a familiar feeling. Something in my body senses spoke of a connection here and we needed to stop and explore.

All those years ago I’d been shooting on assignment for a UK travel mag and in addition to catching the sense of the honeypot locations on the Scottish Isle of Mull for the journal’s audience, I spent a little time with places that called to me, just for me. This beach was one such landscape.

Back then I was shooting with film, good old Velvia loaded into my Canons. However, the images were conceptual abstracts that spoke nothing of the precise location. So looking through my legacy scans hadn’t helped me plan my trip. I was going to have to rely on intuition.

Thankfully, all these years later, it worked and I knew as soon as we parked our VW Transporter under a midge-strewn grove that I was on the right storyline. The secret black beach also goes by the name of Traigh na Cille and is much beloved by locals nestled beyond the near horizon.

As my wife decamped on a grassy bluff overlooking the cove I slotted back into the old me, the one who easily falls in love with a place and kindles old sparks of familiarity. Held by a family of the blackest basalt boulders, the hidden sands shapeshift every tide due to the delicate weave of black and white sand that overlay the rocky strata.

I spent parts of two days here but barely touched the spirit of the place. I was claimed by the rush and pull of black on white, of songlines, imagined sigils and heart traces written by the sea in front of my eyes.

This time I did catch the bigger landscape, but they don’t speak as eloquently of the beauty of the place as the intimate cameos of monochrome sketches. So it’s those that I choose to share with you now.

All images taken by the author. Copyright Jason Smalley 2021.