SKETCHBOOK NO 1 PART 5

 

Well, it took a lot of head scratching and button pressing but here at last is the final part of my first sketchbook.  After changing to Windows 10 Bob found the computer search engine wasn't compatible with blogger, we've changed it now and so far so good, fingers crossed!

 

 

Almost every summer when we had the boat we sailed across the channel to France and then on to Guernsey where we moored in the town marina at St peter port.

 

These three sketches were all drawn from my seat at the back of the boat as we sat in the sunshine.  There are plenty more sketches of the town and island dotted through all my sketchbooks, some of which I'm sure you have seen already.

 

While we were working we spent every weekend on the boat when the weather was fine and as we were moored in Portsmouth harbour we had the whole of the Solent to sail in with all it's lovely harbours and pretty anchorages.

 

Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight soon became our favourite destination as we could pick up a buoy outside the main harbour and enjoy the space around us instead of going inside with all the crowds.  We used to take the ferry ashore to walk over the downs to Freshwater on the south side of the island.

 

We had lovely views from our boat and an endless supply of subjects like this beautiful old motor yacht that anchored a bit further out from us.

 

When the tide was coming in the boat turned so that we had this view of the harbour entrance from our seats on the deck.  There is a very long wooden pier next to the ferry terminal which is used for the boats coming across the Solent from the mainland at Lymington.

 

The view continues towards the old church and the rooftops of the George hotel with it's excellent restaurant.

 

The western extremity of the Isle of Wight is marked by this red and white lighthouse at the end of the Needles rocks.  We often sailed past here going to France or the west country and the current through the narrow part of the channel can be as much as 8 or 10 knots so it was always important to plan our departure to go with the tide!