Kayts Island

Kayts — known locally as Velanai — is the first of the Jaffna islands you reach when you cross the Pannai causeway from the mainland. It is the largest of the inhabited islands and the most accessible: no ferry, only a long bridge over shallow lagoon water that catches the sky on either side.

The island sits at the centre of a quiet network of villages, churches, and palmyra plantations. The St. James and St. Mary churches in Kayts town hold long Catholic histories from the Portuguese period; both were damaged in the war and have since been rebuilt. The ruined Hammenhiel Fort — Portuguese, then Dutch, then British — sits on a small islet just off the southwestern tip of Kayts, accessible by a short navy-operated boat trip when conditions permit.

For most visitors, Kayts is the road that links the rest of the island chain together. The drive across it leads on to Karainagar (and Casuarina Beach), to the Kurikadduwan jetty (for the Nainativu and Delft ferries), and to a thin coastal landscape that feels furthest of all from the busy Jaffna town. There is little organised tourism here; that is the point.