Azheekal Beach

Azheekal Beach lies at the northern tip of the Alappad peninsula in Karunagappally taluk of Kollam district, about 12 km from Kayamkulam and 14 km from Karunagappally. The peninsula is a thin ribbon of land, under 50 metres wide in places, between the Arabian Sea and the T. S. Canal, part of National Waterway 3. The beach itself runs for roughly 660 metres.

It is a working shore. The Azheekal Fishing Harbour is a landing point for the Kollam fishing trade, with around 180 small motorised boats that use gillnets, and the comings and goings of the fleet set the rhythm of the day. The coast here is fragile: the area was badly exposed in the 2004 tsunami, and over the decades the peninsula has lost much of its land to coastal erosion, which residents blame largely on mineral sand mining.