Ganavan bay seems to be a magnet for folk who sit in their cars and watch the sea, or take their dogs for a walk. It is an anchorage of sorts but I have never anchored here, or ever seen any other boats anchored here — it is too exposed to the west, and there are far handier places nearby. And although this must be a lovely town beach for Oban, and very clean, it is hardly worth the bother for anyone lucky enough to have a boat who can get to much nicer places. Actually I am not sure it is so lovely now. Since I first started this guide a developer has sprinkled really horrible glaring-white houses around on the larger — more northerly — of the two beaches. They look awful and seem to have almost no gardens. The memorial to coastal command in the 2nd World War has been nearly pushed into the sea by this dire creeping development. Sunderland and Catalina flying boats were based here, and in Oban Bay, and flew far out over the Atlantic to track down German U-Boats. Their slipway is still here. In January 2012, to add climatic insult to architectural injury, most of the sand got washed away by a major storm, but it returned naturally without the help of human hand or digger. Nowadays there is a threat of even more housing.
The rather nicer, smaller and southern beach has some historical interest (so-called Little Ganavan beach). Like many other places along this coast, there was a lot of activity here during the Second World War — an anti-submarine indicator loop ran along the seabed to Craignure on Mull. The idea was that enemy submarines passing over it would induce an electric current which would be picked up on the shore. A few concrete huts from that period are still there, one of which can be seen from the sea just south of the main beach.
