You wouldn't Believe what was going on here just 4 weeks ago....

[Keith]

Just down the road from me:

World famous 'Needles' rocks and lighthouse..

Doesn't seem possible that a short while ago 100 mph winds and flying shingle would have made this photo impossible...The Army had to evacuate a restaurant here and had their vehicles damaged beyond repair.

Beautiful again now..

 

[Larry L.]

I assume the "Needles rocks and lighthouse" are those 3 little specks just off the far shore on the horizon line?

 

[Keith]

Correct, although they are actually only 5 miles from where I took the photo. Believe me, in a storm that's as close as you want to get. Many a fine ship has gone on the rocks there or on the nearby Shingles Bank..

The annual Round the Island Race in June (16,000 professional and amateur sailors) cut in close there to get out of the tide and many of the bigger yachts have come to grief on the upturned boilers of the wrecked Greek steamship Varvassi that went on the rocks at that spot in 1947.

 

[Robert May Eng.]

A few years ago a friend of mine spent 18 months bolting massive timber sea breakers together down on that stretch of the coast. He used to come home shattered because of the non stop breeze, he said just standing there was a mission even on a nice day.

Bob