Tag Archives: isle of wight

Out at Sea with Your Horses

Every once in a while, when I am going through images to review what I have, I come across something I didn’t expect. While making the crossing back from the Isle of Wight, I was up on deck taking some shots and one of the catamarans that makes the crossing to Ryde was coming off Ryde Pier Head, so I took a few shots. When I go through the shots, I zoom in to check which images are sharp and which are not. In this case, I noticed that some people were out in the water with some horses. There are sand flats out a long way at Ryde so, the water can be close to the shore while it is shallow a long way out. These guys were obviously enjoying being out some distance from the shore. For reference, the pier is about half a mile long.

Changing Continents but Still Chasing Cormorants!

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Mum and I were walking across the wall that crosses the harbour in St Helens. There were a few birds in the vicinity, but I wasn’t anticipating getting anything. Then a bird took off from the water and flew around me providing a few good opportunities to photograph it. What type of bird was it? (Unless you haven’t read the title of this post, you already know.) A cormorant. My favourite bird is just as available to me here as it was in Washington. The colours do seem slightly different but that is just a bonus.

Photographing Ferries – Is It the Pandemic Again??

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During the pandemic, I did spend a bit of time checking out the various ferry services in Washington. Now I am back in the UK and taking a trip to the Isle of Wight, I did get some sunny conditions on one of the Wightlink ferries, Victoria of Wight. We took this ferry across to the Island but came back on a different boat. We were on an earlier ferry than planned so this would have been our ride if we had stuck to our schedule. Anyway, some nice sun on this ferry as it made its regular crossing from Portsmouth to Fishbourne.

Bembridge Windmill

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Sunday morning in Bembridge and the sun was out so, after a stop at a great local café – great job Lagom – it was time to stretch the legs (and try and offset that rather large toasted sandwich I had for breakfast). We wandered up to the windmill. It is owned by the National Trust, and we are members so we could have gone inside. They had only just opened for the season, but it was a possibility. However, we were more interested in the walk, so we didn’t go in.

That didn’t mean we didn’t have a look around outside. The evening before, as we had been driving out to dinner, the evening sun had been on the front of the windmill, and it would have made a lovely shot. I missed that opportunity, sadly. Even so, the morning light wasn’t a bad second best and the only remaining windmill on the Island looked very nice. It is only a few years since they replaced the sweeps (which is the right term for the sails apparently) so it is good that they are investing in keeping this icon of the village going.

A Couple of Military Hovercraft

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No shock to regular readers that I might swing by the Hovertravel facilities when on the Island. A pleasant surprise was to discover that it wasn’t just the Hovertravel craft that were present. A couple of smaller military craft were also parked up. I had seen pictures of these online but didn’t realise that they were still present. I don’t know whether they are ex-military that are being repurposed or new builds for the military. Whatever the story, here they were. It would be better to see them moving but it was the weekend so not a surprise that they weren’t going anywhere.

This Lifeboat Doesn’t Normally Live Here

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A recent sunny weekend took me and Nancy to the Isle of Wight to see my mum. She lives near Bembridge Harbour and, as we drove around the embankment, I noticed a lifeboat moored up at the marina. We took a walk across from her house and it turned out to be the Bembridge all weather boat. Apparently, the winch that is used to haul the boat back into the boathouse is currently out of service. As a result, they are operating from the marina until the repairs can be completed.

When you walk along the dock, you get to appreciate the size of the boat in a way that is not possible when looking down on it in the boathouse. The other than that struck me was just how pristine the thing looked. Boats tend to rapidly show signs of their usage, but the crew of this boat clearly have a ton of pride in maintaining things to a high standard. She looked great. I hope the winch is soon fixed, not least because I really want to get another chance to watch a slipway launch.

Bembridge Ledge Is a Dangerous Thing

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Those familiar with the waters on the eastern end of the Isle of Wight will know about Bembridge Ledge. When the tide is in, you might be forgiven for thinking that, while away from the shore, you would be in deep water. This is not the case and there is a lot of shallow and rocky areas that stretch away from the land. You might think that everyone would stay well clear but both inexperienced and experienced mariners have come a cropper on these rocks. We were up on Culver Down and the tide was quite low. It meant that the ledge was very visible, and you get to appreciate just how extensive it is. Sadly, it will continue to claim victims.

I Can’t Resist a Little Time Watching Hovercraft

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A previous post showed a couple of military hovercraft that were on the Hovertravel pad at Ryde when we were on the Island. It will shock no one that knows me to know that, since we had time, I stopped around to see the return of one of the Hovertravel services. On the ferry across I had managed to get some shots of one of the crossings and now I was able to get an arrival. The tide was quite low so there was a lot of the sand flats to cover. This is one of the unique features of the hovercraft that the service doesn’t mind whether the tide is in or out.

There were some strong winds on the days we visited and this shows itself in the way a hovercraft approaches. Because it has no significant physical contact with the water, its only way to counteract any crosswinds is to crab into them like a plane. Consequently, It looked like it was coming straight at me as it made its approach to the pad. Now we are more local, I suspect I shall aim to make a trip across just to spend time getting some more hovercraft images.

Osborne House Itself

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I’ve posted a few times about our visit to Osborne House but I have not actually shown anything from inside the house in those previous posts. Finally we have gone inside. When it comes to visiting old houses, I often don’t bother with the inside but this one definitely seemed worth a look since we had come all that way. It is definitely interesting but it is also quite bizarre in places.

Talking to some of the guides in the rooms, we discovered that the whole place was put together rather rapidly. Things that look like marble columns are in fact plaster or concrete and painted to look like marble. I think some of that speedy construction means that there is a lot to do in maintaining things. When Victoria died, the house was handed over the country and was used as a place for sailors recovering – presumably from wounds sustained. Bits of the house were locked off from them including her old bedroom which was treated like a shrine by the family. Only in later years did the place start to get preserved and restored in parts.

There is plenty of art scattered around although I think quite a lot of it is replicas of originals which are elsewhere in the royal collection. Grandiose displays abound but then other areas are a lot more practical. The rooms for the kids (of which they had plenty) are very busy. No individual rooms for the youngsters it seems.

The tour takes you on a route through the building and the final section includes the Durbar Room. This is a seriously over the top space. Decorated in styles reminiscent of India, it is an example of what Britain controlled at the time and could easily been considered gaudy. I was both amazed at it and also rather put off. If you give someone free rein to design something, don’t be surprised if they overdo it!

The house itself is Italianate in design but the interior is a combination of all sorts of things be it traditional English, Indian, Greek or anything else that came to mind. It is an interesting thing to see but not a place that I could ever imagine spending a lot of time.

Osborne House Gardens

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We made our visit to Osborne House in October of 2022 and the gardens have since made the news in the UK. One of the older trees fell in some bad weather so, while I don’t know which tree it was, it is possible I got a photo of it shortly before it met its demise. Always a shame when an old tree falls but such is the nature of things. We wandered around the grounds prior to going into the house. It wasn’t clear whether the weather was going to deteriorate so we figured we would do the outside stuff first while we knew it was okay.

It isn’t hard to see how Victoria liked the place. The grounds run down to the sea and the views from the house are really nice. There are trees and plants of all sorts of varieties so, if you know more about that sort of thing, I could quite imagine that you would have much to study. I just like looking at them so a simpler proposition for me.

We took one of the trails down to Osborne Bay. There was a little café down there so we could stop off and have a snack and some refreshments. It wasn’t that warm, but you can always find time for an ice cream if you want to! From the café, it was a straight walk back up to the house. There are some large planters along the path. Not sure how big something could be and survive in one of them, but I imagine a moderately sized tree would be fine!

Once you get close to the house itself, you get to the ornamental gardens. These were actually quite nicely laid out. That sort of thing doesn’t always do it for me, but I quite liked Osborne. However, there were some really odd sculptures scattered around near the house. Not sure what sort of imagery the sculptures of the day had in their heads but the hybrids of various animals and humans that they sculpted were very weird. They also suffered from the same thing of a lot of sculptures of their day- they had never seen the animals that they were recreating. There was a lion that looked more like a goofy character from a comedy based in a high school! We might have laughed at that one for a while!