Kurmagad Island

A tortoise-shaped island ~4 km off Karwar with a hilltop Narasimha temple, snorkelling and an annual jatra; reached by boat. This island guide is organized from Karwar in Uttara Kannada district, with practical planning for routes, timing, nearby stays, food, operators and direct local inventory. Use it to compare what to see, how long to spend, when to go and which homestays, boat operators, houseboats, canoe guides, restaurants and last-mile transfers should be verified around Kurmagad Island.

Kurmagad Island, Karwar
Practical guide

Plan Kurmagad Island

Who's going?Tailor Kurmagad Island to your trip
Typeisland
Nearest baseKarwar
DistrictUttara Kannada
Best timeThe calm season when boats run
Time neededHalf a day with the boat
EntryFree
Places to visit4Listed businesses12

Kurmagad is a tortoise-shaped island about 4 km off Karwar, with a hilltop Narasimha temple.

It offers snorkelling and an annual jatra, and is reached by boat.

What to expect

Highlights

  • The tortoise-shaped island.
  • The hilltop Narasimha temple.
  • Snorkelling and the annual jatra.
Getting there

How to visit

  • About 4 km off Karwar, reached by boat; arrange a local boat from Karwar.
  • A boat trip and a short climb to the temple — wear a life jacket and check the sea.

Distance by road

  • Panaji (Goa)100 km
  • Hubballi165 km
  • Udupi175 km
  • Mangaluru270 km
  • Bengaluru500 km

Road km to Uttara Kannada; ghat roads and traffic vary — allow extra.

Timing

Best time

The calm season when boats run — avoid the rough monsoon sea.

Weather in Kurmagad IslandSeasonal guide

Live forecast loads in your browser.

Today at Kurmagad Island
Sunrise6:22 am
Sunset6:44 pm
Golden hour best light5:44 pm–6:44 pm
Blue hour after sunset6:44 pm–7:09 pm
Sun sets toward compass bearingW · 278°
Moon tonight🌗 Last quarter · 48%

Sunset is in about 2 hours.

South-west monsoon. June to September is monsoon season: the sea gets rough, swimming is often unsafe and boat services can be suspended. Follow lifeguard and local warnings, and expect changeable conditions.

Sun and moon are calculated for this location and shown in IST. Photography windows are the hour around sunrise and sunset; the sunset bearing is degrees clockwise from true north. Moon phase is accurate to about half a day.

Visitor notes

  • A boat trip and hill climb — go with a licensed boatman and carry water.
Stay · eat · do · rent · see · shop

Stays, food & things to do near Kurmagad Island

Verified hotels, homestays, restaurants, experiences, sights, shops and rentals around Kurmagad Island — commission-free, with direct contact. Filter by what you need.

7 places to eat near Kurmagad Island

S
Shree Annapurneshwari Hotel
Where to eat
Restaurant
Shree Annapurneshwari Hotel
3.8 km · ~9 min by auto

A small eating house near the Kali River Garden at Kodibag, at the north end of the town about forty minutes' walk from the centre. "Hotel" here means what it means all over coastal Karnataka — a plate-meals restaurant, not a place to sleep. Named for Annapurneshwari, the goddess of food, which on this coast usually signals a vegetarian kitchen; it publishes nothing, so check before you count on it.

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H
Hotel Happinezz
Where to eat
Restaurant
Hotel Happinezz
4.9 km · ~12 min by auto

A roadside restaurant on the Panvel–Kochi–Kanyakumari highway — NH-66 — at Kodibag, on the northern edge of town about half an hour's walk from the centre. A highway kitchen rather than a destination, and a straightforward stop if you are driving in from Goa. Nothing about its hours or menu is published.

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S
Shagun Hotel
Where to eat
Restaurant
Shagun Hotel
5.2 km · ~13 min by auto

A restaurant at Kodibag, beside the Indian Bank and near the Radha Krishna temple, and one of the closest eating houses to the town centre — about thirteen minutes on foot. OpenStreetMap carries the address; there is no website, no published menu and no hours we can vouch for.

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K
Karwar Chicken
Where to eat
Restaurant
Karwar Chicken
5.3 km · ~13 min by auto

A meat restaurant on KEB Road opposite the Sagar Complex, a quarter of an hour's walk from the town centre, and one of the handful of non-vegetarian kitchens in the middle of town. Karwar's cooking is Konkan and Goan more than Kannadiga — coconut, cashew and ginger in the gravy — and the everyday version of it is eaten in rooms like this rather than in hotels.

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B
Bangarappa Hotel
Where to eat
Restaurant
Bangarappa Hotel
5.1 km · ~13 min by auto

An eating house on INP Road at Baithkol, by the fishing harbour about fifty minutes' walk south of the town centre. Baithkol is where the catch actually lands — mackerel, sardine, seer, prawns, clams and crab — and the kitchens around the harbour road are the reason to be down there at all. Nothing about it is published; go and look.

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V
Vihar Hotel
Where to eat
Restaurant
Vihar Hotel
6.8 km · ~17 min by auto

A restaurant at the Mahalasa cross on the Karwar road, listed in OpenStreetMap with a Binaga and Ankola address — that is the stretch south of Karwar towards the naval base, not the town centre, and it is about 3.5 km out. Useful if you are already on that road; not somewhere to walk to from the beach.

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G
Geeta Chicken Center a
Where to eat
Restaurant
Geeta Chicken Center a
10.3 km · ~17 min by cab

A meat kitchen at Arga, on the coast road well south of the town — the same Arga whose beach went into naval property when the base at Binaga was built. About 9 km round from the town centre, so a drive rather than a walk. The trailing "a" in the name is how it is recorded in OpenStreetMap and is almost certainly a typing slip in the survey, not part of the name.

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Book with the place itself. India’s cyber-crime coordination centre warned in April 2025 that convincing copies of hotel and pilgrimage booking sites are being pushed through sponsored search and social ads, taking payment for rooms the property never hears about. Every listing here links to the business’s own contact details and its own Google or Bing profile — we take no commission and sit in nobody’s payment path. If a booking page reached you through an ad, check the address bar against the property’s own site before you pay. Fraud can be reported on cybercrime.gov.in or on 1930.

Ranked

The best of Karwar, ranked

Kurmagad Island sits in Karwar, and these rank everything verified across the town rather than this one spot — built from the same listings shown above, ordered by the strength of the source evidence behind each entry rather than by anyone's star score. Every card shows how many places are really on it. Nobody pays to appear.

Across the whole of Karwar

Ranked guides

Top experiences around Karwar

3 more places around Karwar, each worth a day of its own.

beachKarwar Beach

4.1 km · ~10 min by auto

The long shallow town strand of Karwar under its headland, running south from the mouth of the Kali river — the evening promenade of the district headquarters, with fishing boats drawn up on the sand and the Western Ghats behind.

fortSadashivgad Fort

3.5 km · ~9 min by auto

A Sonda-era hill fort of 1715 above the mouth of the Kali river, about 5 km from Karwar, with the Shantadurga temple and a 17th-century dargah on the way up and the Arabian Sea and its islands below.

beachTagore Beach & INS Chapal Museum

4.4 km · ~11 min by auto

Karwar’s main promenade beach, named for Rabindranath Tagore, who stayed here in 1882 and wrote a chapter of his memoirs about it — with the decommissioned missile boat INS Chapal preserved on the sand as a walk-through warship museum and a retired Tu-142 patrol aircraft beside it.

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Before you go

Kurmagad Island — at a glance

TimingsBoat trips by day; weather-dependent
Best timeThe calm season; not the rough monsoon sea

Entry: Free island; boat charged

Getting here

How to reach Kurmagad Island

About 4 km off Karwar, reached by boat; arrange a local boat from Karwar

Getting back

Work out your return before you settle in for the sunset. Public transport here thins out sharply in the evening, and Kurmagad Island is easier to reach than to leave. We do not publish departure times: there is no official live feed we are permitted to republish, and a wrong time here would strand you. Check the operator directly on the day.

Ask at the bus stand for the time of the last service back, not the next one. If you miss it, an auto or app cab is the fallback — agree the fare before you get in.

Getting around Kurmagad Island

We have not assessed physical access at this place yet. Across India, step-free routes, handrails and accessible toilets are the exception rather than the rule, and pavements are often interrupted — if step-free access matters to you, contact the site or a local operator before committing to the trip.

If you need help at Kurmagad Island
112All emergencies (police · fire · medical)The single number to call in any emergency (ERSS).

Emergency numbers are verified against official government and state tourism sources. 112 works anywhere in India.

Nearby

What’s near Kurmagad Island

fortSadashivgad Fort 3.5 km · ~9 min by auto · straight line
beachKarwar Beach 4.1 km · ~10 min by auto · straight line
beachTagore Beach & INS Chapal Museum 4.4 km · ~11 min by auto · straight line
beachGokarna Beach 39.6 km · ~66 min by cab · straight line
templeMahabaleshwara Temple, Gokarna 40.7 km · ~68 min by cab · straight line
beachKudle Beach 42.1 km · ~70 min by cab · straight line
beachOm Beach 43.5 km · ~73 min by cab · straight line
beachHalf Moon Beach 44.0 km · ~73 min by cab · straight line
beachParadise Beach 44.4 km · ~74 min by cab · straight line
backwaterAghanashini Estuary 45.8 km · ~76 min by cab · straight line
templeUlavi Channabasaveshwara Temple 47.6 km · ~79 min by cab · straight line
heritageMirjan Fort 52.2 km · ~87 min by cab · straight line

All 4 places to visit in Karwar →

On the map

Where Kurmagad Island is

Good to know

Kurmagad Island — frequently asked

When is the best time to visit Kurmagad Island?

The calm season when boats run — avoid the rough monsoon sea.

What are the entry fee and timings at Kurmagad Island?

Entry: Free island; boat charged. Timings: Boat trips by day; weather-dependent.

How do I reach Kurmagad Island?

About 4 km off Karwar, reached by boat; arrange a local boat from Karwar. A boat trip and a short climb to the temple — wear a life jacket and check the sea.

How much time do I need for Kurmagad Island?

Half a day with the boat.

What else is near Kurmagad Island?

Nearby you can pair Sadashivgad Fort (3.5 km), Karwar Beach (4.1 km), Tagore Beach & INS Chapal Museum (4.4 km), Gokarna Beach (39.6 km).

Image credits

Photographs: S5OKINFINITY, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Wikimedia Commons.