IOM - Beaches

Funnily enough, as the Isle of Man (IOM) is an island, it has lots of beaches.  Over our five visits we have seen quite a few,  but there are many more that we haven't visited as yet.  Let's have a look at the ones we visited this time.

 This little map by Alice Qualye illustrates them well. Source

Port Erin is right at the south of the Island.  It has a lovely sandy beach and you often see little sail boats out in the bay.  St Catherine's Well was the source of fresh water which enabled the settlement to be set up.

We enjoyed lunch in a little tea rooms beside the beach on one of the rare pleasant weathered days.

Our one and only meal of queenies on this trip.  Queenies are small scallops which are fished at the Isle of Man and rather tasty.  There is even a festival for them.

Bradda Head and Bradda Tower dominate the landscape down here.

Here is a view of the beach from Bradda Head, with the little tea rooms to the left of the beach, next to the lighthouse.

Peel is a lovely town on the western side of the island.  It has about the nicest sandy beach, which is frequented by lots of swimmers and little children playing in the sand.  As you can see there is a castle at one end of the beach.

This is the view looking towards the other end of the beach.

You cross a little causeway to reach the castle.

Down the other side of the causeway there is another little beach, Fenella Beach.  It is always littered with heaps of scallop shells.

We were hunting for sea glass but only found one tiny little piece.

We did notice this painted rock not far from the beach.  We saw a few of them around the island.  Rather sweet.

One beach we have to visit each time is at the Point of Ayr, the most northern tip of the island.

No sand here.  Previously we have been here at high tide and it is quite noisy as the rocks rub against each other with the movement of the tides.  This time the tide was out and it was rather quiet compared to normal.

No sand castles here.  I had fun building this teetering tower and hoping it would stay long enough for me to take a photo.  

We have a tradition that we write a note with the stones on the grassy bank - always in the same place.

That's a better photo.  You can actually read it.

The second smaller light house was built as the shore kept moving further from the original one.  Now the second one is quite a distance from the shore line.  The fog horns are no longer used.  I'd have loved to have heard them.

The lighthouse looked stunning with all the gorse.

Ramsay is another town with a long beach.  It looked rather calm on our first visit.

We visited a few days later and it was a little different.

You start to get a feel for what it can be like in winter, and I know this is nothing compared to the size the waves can sometimes reach.

That is Queen's Pier in the background.  It is in  a poor state of repair, but a restoration has just begun.  I do hope to see it in its former glory at some stage in the future.

That sea really was quite big.

As the weather was bad we just went driving.

This is the beach in the capital of Douglas.  Admittedly, it was high tide, which made everything seem more extreme.

This is the only other photo showing any of Douglas beach, in calmer times.

And finally, back to the Castletown area.

To the south of the harbour it is just rocks.  It isn't a good photo, but this is quite a nice garden that unfortunately get pretty much washed away in bad weather.   You have to admire the tenacity of the owners.

To the north of the harbour there is a little promenade with a long sandy beach in front of it. 

 We had a nice walk along here looking for sea glass, with minimal success.

It was nice seeing this horse and rider enjoying the sand.

The final beach we visited was Derbyhaven, which was not at all picturesque at the time we visited.

However, it did provide the mother load of sea glass and china.  We had received a tip off from the owner of the store in Peel where I bought my Isle of Man cross stitch that this was the best place to find it.  She was dead right, and it was just coincidence that we were there at low tide.  I'll show it to you shortly.

This isn't quite a beach, but it is the southern most point on the island, The Sound and the little island is the Calf of Man.

Another thing we seem to do is come down here on the afternoon of our last day on the island.  It is a lovely, peaceful place (and the cafe does good coffee and cake).

The weather was glorious and we even had a seal come quite close and check us out.

There are other beaches that we have visited previously and still plenty that we hope to visit at some stage in the future, but I think we did rather well to see what we did.