The sun is due to shine floor a few days, so to celebrate I’m going to foreign climes to add the Isle of Wight to my coastal adventures. Still its goodbye to Portsmouth and a photogenic passage down The Solent.

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And it’s hi to Fishbourne, looking a bit llike a Constable painting.

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Ryde is just along the coast. Like so many British seaside towns it basks in a former glory. The pier welcomed holiday-makers from the mainland and transferred them to the flesh pots of the town (or the lobster & crab pots). Rusting rails and tracks must have carried several trains at the same time. Today it acts as a terminal for the passenger ferry from the mainland and the end of the pier acts as a car park. It is a novel feeling to drive along the wooden planks to the tatty space at the end.

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I rather lliked Seaview. A quaint Edwardian resort town facing over the Solent. It has a calm atmosphere set off by a front with well maintained houses and bars around the Yacht Club. With the tide in, the rocks are prominent providing coral-like sculptures before the smoother saves are exposed with the receding water.

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St Helen’s is in a prime location at the end of a popular beach for water sports.

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Then we are into the Blackpools of the south coast. First is Sandown.

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Then there is Shanklin, with Sandown’s pier in the background, a bit like an older, bigger brother looking over it.

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