Being an extremely nautical natured person has meant that I have always gravitated to living by the sea and have enjoyed doing nautical things. Scuba Diving is of course a huge part of my life but other activities that are water based interest me too. Living in sunny Southsea is the perfect location to do all sorts of things.
Portsmouth is a very vibrant and social city. One of the things I grew up loving about it was that it has had a naval base here since 1194 and it is still the Navy’s biggest dockyard and it is accessible to the public to explore, well most of. I was interested in people who lived and works at sea and loved collecting bits of old sea rope and watching the boats come in and out of our busy harbour.
Southsea, where I live was developed as a Victorian resort and as well as having a seafront fringing its entirety it is also lined with Southsea Common, South Parade and Clarence Pier and is a stones throw away from the Isle of Wight.
The great thing about Portsmouth is that you can escape it without going very far and that’s what has always drawn me to the Isle of Wight. We recently took a trip over with the guys at Wightlink with our car, huge bonus, to explore and it couldn’t have been a better day!
The ferry all by itself is a calm and relaxed boat cruise that offers up some stunning views of the city and the island as you cross and allows you the freedom to travel on foot or in your vehicle. It is super to have such strong travel links to and from the island to make mini adventures much more simple and easy to organise and execute.
Being a diver meant that I was a huge fan of skipping over to Bembridge Ledge and other local dive sites to check out what lies beneath but it also inspired a natural interest in boats and the boating/sailing world. Portsmouth and Southsea is a an incredible place to live is you have interest in these areas and even if not, sitting on the stones with a bag of chips watching various boats and ferries travel in and out is a sight all on its own.
Sometimes it is nice to have a ‘dry’ day but I find myself never wanting to be too far from the ocean! Love where you live!
