Another legend tells of the ghost of a sailor that would often knock on the windows of the old cottage (now a bothy) on stormy nights – apparently the victim of a shipwreck there. Indeed, before the Cape Wrath lighthouse was built in 1828, the bay is said to have played host to many a shipwreck – all of which still lie buried under the sand. In the 1920s, author Seton Gordon witnessed many submerged wrecks in the sand while walking here. In a book he wrote in 1935, "Highways & Byways in the West Highlands", he says: "I was astonished at the number of wrecks which lie on the fine sand of this bay. All of them are old tragedies: since the placing of a lighthouse on Cape Wrath just over a hundred years ago, no vessel has been lost here. Some of the vessels lie almost buried in the sand far above the reach of the highest tide". He also commented on the possibility of there being Viking longboats buried there, since Sandwood Bay had been used by the Vikings as a stopover point a thousand years previous.