Strathlethan Bay is on the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

coast of

Aberdeenshire Aberdeenshire (; ) is one of the 32 Subdivisions of Scotland#council areas of Scotland, council areas of Scotland. It takes its name from the Shires of Scotland, historic county of Aberdeenshire (historic), Aberdeenshire, which had substantial ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

just south of

Stonehaven Stonehaven ( ) is a town on the northeast coast of Scotland, south of Aberdeen. It had a population of 11,177 at th2022 Census Stonehaven was formerly the county town of Kincardineshire, succeeding the now abandoned town of Kincardine, Aberd ...

. To the north is

Downie Point Downie Point is a prominent headland located at the southern edge of Stonehaven Bay in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. (United Kingdom, 2004) From the Stonehaven Harbour, there is a panoramic view of this cliff landform, especially from the tip of Bel ...

near which lies Stonehaven's Black Hill war memorial – the popular walk from Stonehaven to

Dunnottar Castle Dunnottar Castle (, "fort on the shelving slope") is a ruined medieval fortress located upon a rocky headland on the northeast coast of Scotland, about south of Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire. The surviving buildings are largely of the 15th ...

runs along this part of the trail. On the other side of the bay is

Dunnicaer Dunnicaer, or Dun-na-caer, is a precipitous sea stack just off the coast of Aberdeenshire, Scotland, between Dunnottar Castle and Stonehaven. Despite the unusual difficulty of access, in 1832 Pictish symbol stones were found on the summit and 2 ...

, an inaccessible

sea stack A stack or sea stack is a geological landform consisting of a steep and often vertical column or columns of rock in the sea near a coast, formed by wave erosion. Stacks are formed over time by wind and water, processes of coastal geomorphology. ...

just offshore of Bowdun Head. The long-distance Aberdeenshire Coastal Trail runs around the bay at the top of steep cliffs. On 19 November 1916 the wreckage of the Norwegian steamer ''Isa Fiord'' (meaning ice fiord) was washed ashore in the bay and on 8 October 1940 the Danish ship ''Bellona II'' came aground after it had suffered bombing damage off Gourdon.

References

{{coords, 56, 57, 18, N, 02, 11, 44, W, display=title, format=dms, type:landmark_region:GB Bays of Aberdeenshire