The Black Sea coast along this stretch is all pebbles — smooth, grey-black, polished by decades of slow wave action — and Sarpi's beach is no exception. What it does have, that the beaches five kilometres north towards Batumi increasingly lack, is space. The village is small and the visitors who come this far are generally people crossing the border or those who have figured out to get ahead of the Batumi crowds. The result is a beach where you can actually spread out, with the mountains rising green and immediate behind and the border checkpoint building visible to the south, its white curves incongruous against the skyline.
The restaurants along the beach are simple places — plastic chairs, cold beer, fish pulled out of the same sea you are swimming in. The proximity to Turkey means the menu sometimes leans that way, with dishes you would not find further into Georgia: stuffed mussels, grilled corn, tea served in tulip glasses. The swimming is good if you do not mind pebbles underfoot: the water is cleaner than at the busiest Batumi beaches and the depth drops away quickly. Come in the morning before the day trippers make the drive down from Batumi, or in the early evening when the light on the water turns the checkpoint building gold.