Needles, Friday 23 August

by Ken Trethewey

Following my frustrated visit to the Needles on Wednesday, and now knowing the correct sailing times of the two ferries, I returned to Keyhaven on the following Friday to make my visit to the Needles. The weather was once more most favourable and the boat left on time at 1400 from Keyhaven. Although the boat was planned to visit Needles first, another aim of the visit was to call at Yarmouth to collect passengers who may have been deposited there earlier in the day and return them to Keyhaven.

Keyhaven is a small harbour on the leeward side of the great shingle bank that leads to Hurst Point. Over the course of many centuries, there has been a build-up of deposits from the river such that many watery islands have grown up in the small bay. The channels leading to Keyhaven are contorted with many twists and turns through these mudbanks and flats and much of the remaining space is taken up with moorings for local and visiting small craft. This time, the boat took the short cut out into the open water and then quickly rounded Hurst Point and headed west towards the Needles.

Once in open water, a fine view of Hurst Castle and the lighthouses was obtained and this kept my attention until it grew small in size and the wonderful sights of the western tip of the Isle of Wight grew large. I was excited for this was my first visit to the Needles and, as I was on what I presumed to be a dedicated tourist boat to view the Needles I expected to get a good close-up look at the lighthouse. The weather, fine for photography at first, was starting to deteriorate slightly as a large bank of cloud was creeping across the sky from the north.

As we approached closer to the lighthouse, however, my fears proved unfounded and the cloud remained sufficiently broken up over the sea to allow sustained sunlight to fall on the tower. Sadly, I was about to discover that the captain of the boat did not intend to sail on the southerly side of the rocks where I would have gained the best views of the tower. With the aim of getting to Yarmouth, he merely did a fast pass from the north-west, turning in an easterly direction and passing along the northern side and thus all my photographic angles were facing directly into the sun. Furthermore, he barely slowed down as we went past the lighthouse. I was left with less than one minute to take all the photographs I needed. In retrospect, it was an obvious requirement for a prior chat with the skipper and probably the passing over of an official drinking voucher to facilitate a change to the terms of the visit. Never mind, I did manage to get some very acceptable photographs, but it was frustrating to get so close to, but not achieve real success, especially as it was my second attempt.

[Yarmouth Pier, Ken Trethewey, 2002]

My new purpose to look for the ALL structures was continued with an examination from the boat of several indicated navaids along this part of the Isle of Wight. Some of the navaids that I had recorded in earlier versions of the ALL now seemed not to exist. Totland Pier was one of these. A listed light on Victoria Pier I could not identify, partly because I was not sure what the structure was and we were some distance offshore at this point. An indicated light on Yarmouth Castle in the 1972 edition was no longer listed and I must confess that, in my ignorance, I was not sure exactly how to identify Yarmouth Castle. There is a most obvious structure that is built on a strange little pimple of land quite close to Yarmouth. However, I was quite confused trying to reconcile the structure I was observing with what was on my map I came to the conclusion that this large, seemingly fortified structure that is prominent from Hurst Point is not actually Yarmouth castle. This question remains unresolved.

I believe that I managed to correctly identify and photograph the ALL structure on Yarmouth pier since our boat did eventually come alongside here. Though the ALL records it as a green column (my camera recorded it as a grey pole, and, there are several piers in Yarmouth) I am reasonably confident that I photographed the correct navaid on the correct pier.

I sometimes wonder whether this effort is worthwhile, but I continually come to the conclusion that I must do it from now on. Life would be so much easier if I stuck to lighthouses...

Copyright 2002 Ken Trethewey; all rights reserved.

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Posted August 12, 2005. Site copyright 2005 Russ Rowlett and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.