Sconce Point to The Needles

Photo: Peter Bruce

Once past Sconce Point, there are rocks between Round Tower Point and Fort Albert.

You can avoid the rocks between Round Tower Point and Fort Albert by
keeping in view the old coastguard cottages on West High Down in view to
the right of Fort Albert.

There’s another ledge north of Fort Albert, which can be avoided by keeping Tennyson’s Cross on West High Down, a fort’s width outside the right hand side of the Fort.

Another series of ledges, How Ledge in Colwell Bay and Warden Ledge off Warden Point, can be avoided by lining up Hatherwood Point with the dry moat cut into the chalk just inland of the Old Needles Battery.

With the wind in the south or west, Totland Bay (top), and around Hatherwood Point to the famous coloured sands of Alum Bay (bottom), are both very pleasant anchorages but there are rocky shoals along the southern lip of Totland Bay, off Hatherwood Point and the Long Rocks in the south of Alum Bay. Nothing remains of the 40m (130ft) radio antenna Marconi built outside the Needles Hotel above Alum Bay in 1897.

If you’re using a mobile please click here to see the next leg: The Needles to St Catherine’s Point.