Havens of the Ships

After the Havens of the Falas were overrun by Morgoth in I 473, the seafaring people of those cities escaped in their vessels. Led by Gil-galad and Círdan, they sailed away southwards to the Isle of Balar, far out in its Bay. Círdan already held some settlements on the island, but after this event the havens of the Isle of Balar became the refuge of the last High King of the Noldor and his people.

We are not told the names of the havens on Balar, nor how many there were (though from their plural name, there were evidently at least two of them). At this time in the late First Age, Morgoth's creatures roamed far and wide across Beleriand. Nonetheless, the people of Gil-galad and Círdan remained safe across the wide waters of the Bay of Balar, beyond Morgoth's reach unless he conquered all the lands of Beleriand. Doubtless Morgoth would eventually have sent his forces against even the Isle of Balar, but the War of Wrath descended on him before he could so so.

That cataclysmic War of the Valar against Morgoth left the Isle of Balar drowned beneath the Great Sea, and so the Havens of the Ships came to an end. Their people, though, were able to escape once more and established new havens on the reshaped coastline of Middle-earth. This was the origin of Lindon, and of its Grey Havens of Mithlond on the Gulf of Lhûn.