The South Coast

Today, we decided to venture out to the south coast to see what there was and we found a delightful region to explore. After leaving Castletown headed west, we first come to the shore in the Balladoole region where we can look across the bay and see Port St. Mary just on the horizon.



In Port St. Mary, we find a smaller section of the aby boasting a find little beach that, no doubt, is well used in the warmer months.

Also from this vantage point, I can see along the coast past town and the working portion of the town shore.

From the side of this smaller bay opposite the main portion of town, we a fine view of the town spread out under some pretty impressive cloud formations. Even though it is late morning, the low angle of the sun makes it appear much earlier to our closer-to-the-equator trained eyes.

Facing the beach you saw earlier, is this row of what appears to be mostly summer homes. Lots of fine townhouses that seem, at present, to be unused but not abandoned.

This seems to be typical of town on the island - lots of houses and buildings packed close together, joined by narrow winding streets.

Farther west, we come to the Cregneash area close to what is called "The Sound". Outside of any town, we find a very Irish-like landscape, covered with walls (or hedge-rowed) fields mostly filled with sheep.

In the distance to the right, behind the church (which we suspect has been converted to a home), you see the Calf of Man, an island that stands just off shore. More on this below.

The small village here has this great twisty road headed up the hill.

The road ends at the The Sound facing the Calf of Man. Conveniently, there are three very important things here: a parking lot, a place to turn around to so you can get out, and a coffee shop so you don't want to leave.

I tried repeatedly to get come longer exposures of the waves and the islands with no success. the wind is blowing so hard that even with the tripod completely collapsed, me on my knees hunched over the camera holding everything to the ground, I still get blurry rocks. I'm beginning to think that the rocks here all move!

A final view from the parking lot looking into the sun. It was about 1:00 PM when I took this image so you can see that we are still in the midsts of a northern winter.

It is cold here, but not bitterly so. It is perhaps in the low 40's. It is the wind that is the killer. Yet, we saw people out walking the many trails that lead to and from this small car park.

We'll be back on a calmer day to try again.