Kulaba Fort

Type: Sea forts
Grade: Easy
Base City: Alibaug
Distance: 155 KMs from Pune
Route: Pune-Khopoli-Pen-Alibaug
Time visited: Nov 2010
Time to see around: 1 hour max
How to visit: Park your vehicle on Alibaug beack. A 10 minutes Boat ride to the fort starts from here. They charge around 100/ per person for to and fro. In low tides you can actually walk or take a buggy ride. The boating is well organized and they issue a ticket on the counter.
Entrance fee: There is Rs 5 charge for the entrance to the fort.

This Diwali we decided to visit Naigaon beach and Kulaba fort of Alibaug. We reached early to Alibaug beach around 9 AM. There was very less crowd around.

Built on a rock island near Alibag town, Colaba, Kolaba or Kulaba fort was probably came under Shivaji command along with whole of south Konkan. This was later established as naval station. It attained importance under the Angres and was the main base of the Maratha navy.

The main entrance of the fort, called Maha Darwaja, faces the Alibaug city.

The Archelogical survey of India has maintained this fort. Once inside the fort there's a well paved road with structure on both side.

There are 17 Bastions and the parapet wall is 7-8 feet wide.


There are two entrance doors. The main entrance door face Alibaug city.


As you start entering the fort on the left is Bhavani temple and house of few people that still reside in the fort.

Further ahead there are huge remains of what probably could have been palaces. The second structure which is a two storied could have been queens/ladies palace. The decorative false windows on the inner wall offer a glimpse of the once beautiful structure.

The well maintained Ganesh temple built by Raghoji Angre in 1759 is work visiting.

The huge beautifully carved Tulshi Vrindavan is something to watch out.

Right in front of the temple is a huge squared water tank.

The southern gate is smallerv called as Daria / Yeshwant Darwaja.

The view from the southern gate look awesome.

On one of the Bastions near main entrance door there are two huge cannons.

From alibaug side there is a small fort-like structure called sarjyakot, which was probably constructed to store artillery and protect attack from alibaug side.







This mesmerizing beautiful structure over 300 years old is truly worth visit.