You reach the beach by following the coastal track past the harbor's northern breakwater, where the road narrows to rutted dirt and oleander bushes crowd both sides. The sand here is fine and pale, nearly white where the water laps it smooth. Wooden frames stand in rows near the dunes—fishing nets stretched to dry, their nylon filaments glinting in late-afternoon light.
“Port Say exists as linguistic archaeology—a beach whose colonial-era name persists in local usage decades after official maps dropped it, creating an identity separate from Marsa Ben M'Hidi proper.”
Credit: UnsplashLong-tail boats moored in clear water
The beach faces northwest, and by five o'clock the sun begins its slow descent toward the horizon line. Families arrive for this hour specifically, spreading blankets on sand still warm from the day, children wading while parents watch the sky shift from blue to amber to copper. You hear the call to Maghrib prayer drifting from the town behind you, blending with the sound of small waves folding onto shore.
Few signs mark this stretch with the Port Say name anymore—it's a holdover from when the colonial administration maintained a small shipping point here, long before Marsa Ben M'Hidi's modern harbor. But ask anyone in town for Port Say beach and they'll point you north, past the breakwater, to where the fishing nets dry and the sunset performs nightly.
