A Twitcher's Paradise

Hurst Castle and Hurst High lighthouse are linked to the mainland via a 1.5 mile long spit (the length of which I learned very recently). This round shaped fortress was built by Henry VIII, along with several others in the Solent, as part of an effort to strengthen defences against the invading French.
A couple of years ago, we decided to walk to the castle so that we could watch the Round The Island Race fleet as it sailed through Hurst Narrows, the tidally challenging, small passage (fnaar fnaar) that links the Solent to the English Channel.
It was a beautiful, warm day. We set of early and charged down to Keyhaven to park the car. I asked Fur how long he reckoned it would take to walk to the end of the shingle spit. 'Dunno', he said. 'About twenty minutes'.
'Ok', sez I and off we go.
An hour later, crunching and trudging on large pebbles and we're about three quarters of the way there. We were starting to get a bit fed up by then, so we put on a spurt and arrived tired, but chuffed to bits at the glorious view of hundreds of yachts, kites up, gliding through the narrows.
What a walk back. I will never, ever do it again. I even considered refusing to carry on in the hope that the coastguard would drive me back to the mainland, but my forehead was steadily turning the colour of a monkey's arse and we had other things to do.
I'm glad we did it though, as we saw the boat we were to become owners of the very next day. I'll never forget how excited we were when we spotted her blue and yellow spinnaker as she whizzed out to sea. It was the beginning of a very special love affair.


The little feeding birds in this pic are called Godwits. I know this because I asked a bird watching lady what they were today. I couldn't get any closer to them unfortunately, as the marshy, muddy sand was soo soft and I was scared it might suck me in.