Sanna

Sanna, on the far northwest coast, is one of the jewels of west Ardnamurchan.

On a summer's day, with its beaches and turquoise sea, one wonders whether God made a mistake when he made Sanna: it was intended for the Caribbean or the Seychelles - all it lacks is a few palm trees - but was put down in the wrong place.

Sanna is a crofting village, but it is best remembered by its many visitors for its empty beaches, long stretches of tawny gold sand which, even on a busy Bank Holiday, always seem to be empty of people. What is so nice is that there isn't one but several beaches scattered round a wide bay which is separated from the white croft houses by the mochair, an area of coarse grass growing across steep-sided dunes formed of shell debris blown in from the beach.

The village facilities include a red telephone box, a post box, a tin church, a car park and, the most recent addition, a water treatment plant which is reputed to have cost £1.5 million, serving a resident population of nine. So it's a lonely place in winter, and it was on a wild winter evening, with the wind gusting over gale force and the rain travelling horizontally, that our local postie was sitting in his van, having arrived a few minutes before the collection time at the post box, when a knock came on his window. The postie wound down the window to see a very bedraggled man standing beside his van. "Help!" the man said.

He had good reason to ask for help. Minutes before, his small fishing boat had been wrecked on the cliffs to the north of Sanna.