On Chesil Beach, by accident

To take advantage of the long weekend, the sailing programme advertised a Channel Isles Dash to Alderney, with a chance to see speedy puffins skimming over the water – and six boats signed up. It seems that was an unfortunate typo: the description “Isle” was correct, but our destination turned out to be the Isle of Portland, not Alderney. Would we still spot any puffins?

The days following Easter, all eyes had been on the forecasts as they evolved: there was every chance of stable high pressure and steady easterly winds to speed us there and back. By breakfast on Easter Thursday, the picture had changed. There was now an evens chance of nearly ideal conditions for Alderney; but an equal risk of the weekend ending with a long miserable beat back into strong winds or even a full gale; and because Braye Harbour is untenable, indeed dangerous, in a NE gale, perhaps even the need to quit Alderney early – to Cherbourg or, making a long haul home, down to St Peter Port? With all six skippers chipping in ideas (what about a frisky reach to and from Fécamp?), after a review of all the options we jointly decided upon Portland as offering the best combination of distance (two boats were coming from Chichester), shelter, and the chance of a reasonable return passage, even in a strong NE’ly.

After all this talk of forthcoming gales, it was no surprise that on the outward leg (Thursday night or Friday morning, according to taste), the winds were frustratingly light, mostly F2 variable, occasionally F3, which meant motoring or motor sailing in order to arrive at a decent hour.

Friday was pleasant, but somewhat misty, and now and again a sinister gloom descended. Mary Lunn was in the Needles Channel when out of the mist emerged a curious ochre apparition, as though distant Hengistbury Head had been brought forward into the middle ground; an indistinct mirage, it was hovering against the uniform grey of sea, coast and sky. Finally, as the angle changed, we realised it was the new shingle hillock that this winter had sprouted out of the Shingles Bank. It is a good 2m higher than the charted depth.

n the quiet conditions, like most of our boats at different times, we took the inshore passage past St Alban’s race, enjoying close views of the stubby lighthouse at Anvil Point, the markers for the measured mile, and the dramatic Jurassic coast.

Jurassic coastline

By now the day had brightened and as Mary Lunn passed along the coast we admired the play of light on the rugged cliffs, and examined the many old quarry workings: taking the huge stones off by barge must have been a challenge in anything but the calmest conditions. For miles the cliff faces were speckled with colourful climbers, dangling above the waves. They were not the only ones exploiting the fissures and ledges: we were entertained by countless smartly dressed sea birds, out fishing and then returning to perch on ledges and in cracks. The consensus had them as guillemots; but there might have been some razorbills, with their thicker beaks.

Just after St Alban’s Head, Mary Lunn was called up by an approaching fishing vessel, drifting down in light airs – or to be more precise, by a Bavaria 39 trolling for mackerel. Ariel had managed to start the long weekend a whole day early, and was thus cleverly staying one day ahead of the changing wind patterns. This encounter neatly fulfilled a much earlier prediction by SMS, made before we had decided the hour of our departure – it is reassuring to find that the Commodore not only knows the disposition of his fleet, but can even predict their movements before the crews themselves know!

Left right confusion at Portland

Berths at Portland had been booked in a neighbourly group, so there was ready help with lines on arrival: this was handy, since the friendly chap on duty in the marina office didn’t know his left from his right. Azanti was told starboard-side to when it turned out to be port, while Mary Lunn was told port-side to when it should have been starboard! The other four were Tiger Moon, Chai of Burnham, Pim and Quartet. With the six boats assembled, the evening passed merrily with welcome drinks and convivial suppers on board.

The conviviality of the evening led to uniformly late rising on the morrow, and we duly gathered at 1130 for a stroll together along the line of Chesil Beach, serenaded by a lark hovering over a carpet of sea pinks. To our left, the wall of shingle as high as a mast; on our right, windsurfers and kitesurfers were at play in fresh breezes on the smooth waters of the harbour.

We were heading for the Crab House Café, near the Ferry Bridge at the foot of the Fleet Lagoon, a recommendation that had come from a chance encounter with a stranger with whom I shared a recent ferry and train journey back from Cowes. A provisional booking of a dozen – as soon as Portland was decided on – had matured into a firm booking of 20 as skippers one by one confirmed their plans during the course of Thursday. (By the way, the owner of the Crab House Café told me that they have had their fingers burnt in the past when yachtsmen have booked, changed their sailing plans and not bothered to inform the restaurant, leaving tables empty. For parties, therefore, a deposit of £10 a head is now required: entirely reasonable, and shame on those sloppy yachtsmen.)

We sat down at a long table out on the sunny terrace to enjoy a marvellous meal with subtle flavours. Our table was beside the restaurant’s own herb garden. The sun was so hot that the straw parasols – in signature pink – were appreciated after all. Those diners opting for a large crab were provided with a full toolkit including a heavy hammer. Ah, yes – and a bib. As another diner proved emerging from the restaurant – it’s hard to look cool wearing a bib.

The hammers whirled: perhaps neighbours should have been offered protective goggles too. The pails began to fill with shrapnel and the buzz of conversation increased. The restaurateur knows the exact provenance of all his seafood: one of our dishes had, appropriately enough, been fished midway between Alderney and Portland. Crab, lobster, scallops, and fish – all were the freshest possible; perfectly prepared, delicately cooked, and served in a genial atmosphere and thoroughly unpretentious setting. No wonder that Rick Stein raves about this place. A succession of plates came and went and our early lunch (we had started around noon) turned into a splendid ‘French’ lunch lasting until tea time, after which the six boats went off (at a gentle pace) in different directions.

The Mary Lunners walked back southwards. A novice kitesurfer had been swept under the bridge by the strong current and was trying to look invisible as he struggled to deal with the tangle of control lines. (The Fleet Lagoon communicates with the harbour, so it is salty at the S end but has fresh water at the North). Across the narrow channel, a couple of little terns hovered, danced and dived to find their own lunch of fresh fish.

And so to Chesil Beach and over the top, onto the west slope. It turns out that ceosel or cisel means "gravel" or "shingle" in Old English. Admiring the finely graded smooth pebbles – from orange-sized at the south-east end (by Portland) to pea-sized at the north-west end - we stumbled across a dinosaur’s footprint. How did this much larger object come to have been tossed along with the lighter pebbles? We had seen a fair number of these ‘footprints’ last year on Compton Beach, under the crumbling cliffs. Dinosaur footprints? - was someone pulling my leg? At first I had been doubtful; why was the ‘footprint’ concave, like a plumped-up cushion? The explanation is that silt (or similar) fills up the imprint and then solidifies; so what remains is rather like a plaster cast of the footprint. Go to Compton Beach (IoW) and see for yourself!

The forecast was bad for Sunday, with strong headwinds for the return, the possibility of a gale later, and Monday’s winds likely to be stronger still. The hope was for NE or NNE, but it might be bang on the nose. With Monday’s threat of heavy weather in mind, one boat left Portland on Saturday afternoon; and in the evening the remaining skippers and crews swapped ideas on the pontoon and debated the options in view of the usual considerations, such as ports of refuge, strength of crew, the awkward timing of the flood tide for Hurst, and the small matter of eventual return travel by rail or car, with work looming Tuesday morning.

Lulworth Cove and Worbarrow Bay would provide shelter but were not really far enough to make a sensible stopping place. Poole Harbour offered a suitable pit-stop, but there was likely to be no room left in the marinas at the end of a busy weekend, with visiting boats staying in and additional boats seeking refuge: Poole therefore was considered only as an anchorage (eg Goathorn Pt.), not somewhere one might have to leave the boat for any length of time.

In the event, after Sunday breakfast, one boat left to motor home under bare poles, most uncomfortably, but making good time to Lymington; two others beat boldly eastwards, and two others wondered whether a very long and gruelling beat might erase all pleasant memories of the rally. Quartet had been sailing for an hour when she was kind enough to radio back to Mary Lunn – engine warmed up, lines in hand to slip – that the wind had just settled firmly on the nose, and was already gusting 29 knots, that she was able to track no better than 135°, and was returning to Portland.

On Mary Lunn, we turned off the engine to review our plans once more, calculated and reconfirmed likely passage times, and concluded that the return sail would be safe but long and arduous, and might jeopardise a family commitment that one of the crew had. We would spend the day exploring the Isle of Portland instead, leave the boat there, and return by rail from Weymouth. A pity that we had remembered our passports, but not our Network Railcards!

At this point, we spotted a club burgee on a yacht just motoring out of the marina: the bins revealed this to be Otters Way, so I called them up to wish them well and relay Quartet's latest report. The cheery reply came that they were en route for Dartmouth, and were looking forward to a brisk sail - downhill! - so I was able to wish them bon voyage, trying hard to disguise the note of envy in my voice.

We put the boat the bed, Quartet came in, we said our farewells and went off to explore the Isle and Royal Manor of Portland, and spectacular it is.

Our plan was first to visit the Sculpture Park in the disused Tout Quarry and then to enjoy a cliff walk on the way back. The marina office told us that there was a frequent bus running up the hill, and that the Sculpture Park was near the Heights Hotel bus stop. We checked this with the bus driver, duly disembarked at the hotel, and asked a local woman waiting at the bus stop across the road for the precise directions for the entrance to the quarry. Confessing that it was a year or two since she had visited the Sculpture Park, she sent us off with detailed directions along the road.

After walking a while, with still no sign of the Sculpture Park, we found ourselves at a stoneyard, and paused to ask for better directions. We were greeted by one Hannah, who immediately and irresistibly recruited us to load a heap of worked stones into her wheelbarrow – she had been running a course for children with learning difficulties, who had carved the stones with charming fish, flowers, and other designs. You might think that a spell of convict labour would be enough to earn the true course to the Sculpture Park but no, we were then given a private tour of the former Drill Hall, being restored by Hannah and colleagues as an enormous workshop on the edge of a quarry.

In the Drill Hall, we were privileged to meet Evan, a twelfth generation mason - had the rhythm of his mallet been handed down from father to son for 300 years? – who showed us a selection of traditional tools. Evan has been directly employed by Canterbury Cathedral for the last 12 years. He described the various beds (layers), each with its own characteristics and uses, and explained how the hardness of the stone changes over time, as the stone weathers. We compared the properties of Portland and Caen stone.

And then Dean, the Croatian member of our crew, surprised us by introducing Brac, an island of sun and stone he knows well. He told us the pure white Brac stone was used in the building of the White House, the Reichstag, and public buildings in other capitals. This was new, even to Evan – we were all learning a lot! One aim of the Portland Sculpture and Quarry Trust  is to keep alive the traditional skills. They run summer courses, and Hannah almost got us to sign up on the spot.

Thanks, then, to the wrong directions given at the bus stop, we passed a fascinating hour, and thanks to Evan we were later able to identify the attractive forecourt of the marina as being paved with local Roach – the Roach bed is the one rich in shells and fossils. Evan, of course, was also able to tell us precisely where to find the Sculpture Park – very near the Hotel, but in the opposite direction!

The Sculpture Park is unique and all the visitors who had managed to find it were smiling at each discovery. Inspired by the shapes and textures they find in the old quarry workings, sculptors – including famous names, such as Gormley - have carved into the living rock. The visitor follows meandering unmarked paths, turns a corner, and discovers a crocodile’s jaw, or a classical fireplace, or an elephant, or a torso, or a falling man. At the same time, one gains an idea of the operation of the old quarry, and the business of extracting the stone and taking it off by sea.

HMS Portland, a Type 23 frigate happened to be in harbour, and back at the Heights Hotel we ate a sandwich of local crab in the aftermath of a civic reception for her crew, hosted by the mayor decked out in his official chains with a flouncy bow on either shoulder. That explained the military marches that the breeze had been carrying over Tout Quarry. For HMS Portland, next stop Gibraltar. After that, they weren’t letting on – possibly a return to anti-piracy duties in the Indian Ocean. From the commanding position of the Heights terrace, we saw the extent of Chesil Beach and the Fleet Lagoon.

After lunch, we walked across to the cliffs on the East side, wandered around the High Angle Battery, and then on to the impressive Verne citadel built into the hilltop by convict labour (c1850). In the 1940s, part of it became a prison, and an impregnable one at that. The footpath runs along the moated perimeter and gives excellent views. It also gives a good sense of the inclined railway down which the stones for the breakwaters were taken to be dumped in the roads to form the harbour. Enjoying the panoramas, we were thoughtful as we looked out at the white horses on the open sea, and more thoughtful still as we paused in the Naval Cemetery above the harbour, before descending past one of Henry VIII’s forts and on to the marina.

Along the waterfront were reminders of the various perils of the sea. Near the marina lies a bulky solid timber, a section of a teak tree, I should guess. One metre in diameter and 3 metres long or more, it was recently found off the Portland Race and, a hazard to shipping, towed away by the Police; it is now displayed by way of a sober warning, together with a pithy notice to keep a good lookout at all times. By the marina gates there is a modern 45-knot torpedo, not far from the site where Whitehead as long ago as the 1860s invented and developed the first devices. And beyond that, a moving stone memorial erected last year to 29 young seamen lost in 1948 while returning to HMS Illustrious after a run ashore, when in a storm their liberty boat overturned in the harbour itself, less than 100 yards from their ship. With all that in mind, it is some relief to hear the occasional clattering of the resident Coastguard helicopter (personalised number-plate, or callsign, G-SARD) as it comes and goes about its business.

True it is that Portland Harbour has a somewhat bleak and industrial setting, but the Isle is an SSSI, the scenery is spectacular and unusual, the whole area is rich in history and wildlife, and there is much to discover within easy reach of the port, by foot or frequent bus.

And those puffins? Despite ravaging by rats of their nesting sites, they still visit the Jurassic coastline including the Isle of Portland itself. Just after St Alban’s I thought I spotted a few puffins skimming over the surface, but the direction of the light was awkward and the birds too fast and far off to be certain.

Robin Whaite (skipper, Mary Lunn)