Back To The Island So Back To The Hovercraft

We left plenty of time to drive to Portsmouth to catch our ferry to the Isle of Wight so, naturally, traffic flowed smoothly and we got there with an excess of time.  Nancy wasn’t in the least surprised that I decided to park up on the seafront at Southsea to kill some time.  Oh, was this next to the Hovertravel terminal?  Well, that’s lucky.

We had just enough time for one arrival and one departure before it was time to head to our ferry terminal.  That wouldn’t be all though.  The hovercraft passes the car ferry during its crossing so I was able to get some shots of it in operation from the deck of the ferry as we left Portsmouth.  We also took a walk along the front at Ryde after lunch with Mum.  Just enough time to see the hovercraft arriving and departing there too.

One interesting addition was Solent Express.  This was used on Hovertravel’s services a few years ago but was withdrawn when the new hovercraft were commissioned.  I had understood it was stored somewhere.  Apparently, they needed space wherever that was because it is back at Ryde but still looks stored.  There is plenty of seaweed around it making it look like it hadn’t gone anywhere for a while.  I wonder what its future holds?

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