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Coming aboard
Sunset over Lymington
And then moonrise
Down below
Fuelling before departure
The skipper no longer rows ashore with a petrol can...
A chance meeting with a Ransome friend
Bigger ships in the Solent
Getting closer
...and closer...
And for other yachts, closer still
There is always something interesting to look at
Approaching Portsmouth - past the submarine rescue tower at HMS Dolphin
Looking towards Portsmouth itself
The Royal Navy of 1870: HMS Warrior
...and the Navy of 2005
The best view in Portsmouth...?
Leaving the Solent...
...past one of the old forts
High water in the Bembridge channel requires careful pilotage
Low water, six hours later
And no water if you get the pilotage wrong...
A calm night in Chichester Harbour
Then east, past Brighton
And Beachy Head
Equally impressive from on land
Dungeness: Ransome would not have seen the nuclear power station
"Nothing to declare"
"A fast launch was rushing towards him, water spurting from her bows. The Customs launch. He knew her and he knew the Customs officers aboard her." (We Didn't Mean to go to Sea, Chapter 25)
A misty view of Dover
"The tall wireless masts at Bawdsey were showing" (We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea, Chapter 24). The masts at Bawdsey, seen by Ransome in the late 1930s, were the experimental precursors to the radar masts used by the RAF in 1940. Those at Dover remain to give an idea of the view Ransome describes.
The North Foreland light, soon after dawn
Leaving Kent behind
Life onboard. Steering...
Navigating...
"Jim Brading rolled up the end of the mattress on the port bunk and pulled out a couple of charts." (We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea, Chaper 5). Seventy years on, the Nancy Blackett Trust keep their charts under the same bunk.
Washing up
And looking out...
For the Sunk lightship
"They hurried... up on deck to find a blue, sunlit sea, and right ahead of them a lightship." (We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea, Chapter 24)
These days the lightship is unmanned
"As they passed the lightship they exhanged 'Good mornings' with the men on board who came and looked down over the stern to see the little ship go by" (We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea, Chapter 24)
Shaping course for Harwich
Roaring along
Into Harwich Harbour
The old Felixstowe Dock still survives, but is now dwarfed by miles of container terminals
The ferries have also changed since Ransome's day
But at Pin Mill, the Butt and Oyster and alma Cottage remain
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© The Arthur Ransome Society 2007
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