Coming aboard

Sunset over Lymington

And then moonrise

Down below

Fuelling before departure

The skipper no longer rows ashore with a petrol can...

A chance meeting with a Ransome friend

Bigger ships in the Solent

Getting closer

...and closer...

And for other yachts, closer still

There is always something interesting to look at

Approaching Portsmouth - past the submarine rescue tower at HMS Dolphin

Looking towards Portsmouth itself

The Royal Navy of 1870: HMS Warrior

...and the Navy of 2005

The best view in Portsmouth...?

Leaving the Solent...

...past one of the old forts

High water in the Bembridge channel requires careful pilotage

Low water, six hours later

And no water if you get the pilotage wrong...

A calm night in Chichester Harbour

Then east, past Brighton

And Beachy Head

Equally impressive from on land

Dungeness: Ransome would not have seen the nuclear power station

"Nothing to declare"

"A fast launch was rushing towards him, water spurting from her bows. The Customs launch. He knew her and he knew the Customs officers aboard her." (We Didn't Mean to go to Sea, Chapter 25)

A misty view of Dover

"The tall wireless masts at Bawdsey were showing" (We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea, Chapter 24). The masts at Bawdsey, seen by Ransome in the late 1930s, were the experimental precursors to the radar masts used by the RAF in 1940. Those at Dover remain to give an idea of the view Ransome describes.

The North Foreland light, soon after dawn

Leaving Kent behind

Life onboard. Steering...

Navigating...

"Jim Brading rolled up the end of the mattress on the port bunk and pulled out a couple of charts." (We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea, Chaper 5). Seventy years on, the Nancy Blackett Trust keep their charts under the same bunk.

Washing up

And looking out...

For the Sunk lightship

"They hurried... up on deck to find a blue, sunlit sea, and right ahead of them a lightship." (We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea, Chapter 24)

These days the lightship is unmanned

"As they passed the lightship they exhanged 'Good mornings' with the men on board who came and looked down over the stern to see the little ship go by" (We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea, Chapter 24)

Shaping course for Harwich

Roaring along

Into Harwich Harbour

The old Felixstowe Dock still survives, but is now dwarfed by miles of container terminals

The ferries have also changed since Ransome's day

But at Pin Mill, the Butt and Oyster and alma Cottage remain