20th July 1987 - the view from the beach.

[Peter Mugridge]

Once again we find ourselves at Fort Victoria awaiting the expected passage of the inbound voyage.  And on this occasion the weather, tide and lighting conditions came together perfectly for the occasion.  Look at these pictures; can you feel the sand under your feet?  Can you hear the waves lapping on the shore?  Can you see the seaweed on the rocks shifting slightly as the water flows around with the waves?

And most important of all... can you hear the throb of the mighty engines driving the vision of perfection through the water just ½ a mile in front of you as you look out across those waves?

[Peter Mugridge]

The other half of the above sequence.

Unfortunately this was the last year of the annual family holidays in West Wight, so the Fort Victoria photographic sequences stop here... unless anyone else here has any?

[Mauretania1907]

Many thanks for lovely Pix of our favourite lady.

[Chris]

Superb images Peter!!

[Twynkle]

Thanks so much for these, Peter.
'Keeping the legend alive' lives on!

It's amazing to think that her engines could be heard at that distance!

[Peter Mugridge]

Thank you all:)

Chris; Mauretania - if you have found the similar threads I have posted you probably noticed that I tried, as far as possible, to do different photographs each time rather than the same ones over and over again from a given location.  Though of course a lot depends on the weather and tide when you try that!

Twynkle, yes the engines could be heard at that distance; it's not really much further than the distance at Calshot to the shipping lane.  Even small freighter engines can be heard at that location.  It does require a fairly calm weather day, though, otherwise the wind will either carry the noise away or simply drown it out.

Sadly, in later years the vast majority of sailings went the other side of the island, although by then we were not doing an annual two weeks in West Wight anyway.  Very few large ships use the Needles Passage these days ( there are no longer any pilots based at Lymington ) although the Black Watch is a regular, and I have three weeks ago been told a report from someone who saw the QM2 heading in via the Needles Passage ( seen from the Poole area ) on one occasion last year - that would have been something at Fort Victoria considering that when broadside on it was impossible to fit all of QE2 into a single 35mm frame if you used a standard 50mm lens!