Bembridge Lifeboat Station.. (and just a rather nice beach to chill at)
Well today I managed to squeeze in some time to get into the little Village of Bembridge here on the Island and get some photos around the Bembridge lifeboat station, or maybe it was just an excuse for me to go to another beach while the weather is still okay.
The station is located south of the Solent on the English channel and even though it looks pretty quiet here, the station is actually based on one of the busiest shipping lanes in the UK.
The boathouse is out away from the shore and you can get to the boathouse to have a look via a bridge or gangway which was a good place to get some pictures and just take in the views. I like this little piece of the island, there's a coffee shop and I just sat outside watching the world go by.. very very slowly for an hour after having a wander around. It's such a picturesque place, as you'll see from some of the photos I took.
This gangway is a great place to get photos of the sea and mainland..
Check out the colorful little beach huts in the pic below, It was strange because it felt like I was looking at a two-dimensional painting. Such a world away from the chaotic nature of being in the city in the US where i previously was for a few years. But each place has things to offer and for me I tend to see the beauty in the grimiest cities to these picture postcard little havens away from it all and everything in between.
People were very relaxed and just chilling, there were families and couples enjoying themselves on the beach with their children and dogs and all was good in this moment. Life just seemed right. There was no stress or worries.
The lifeboat station is run by the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution). On the other side of the boathouse, they have a ramp for the one lifeboat stationed inside to come down on when it is called out to sea. One thing I noticed was just how damn clean they keep these boats, they seem to polish them which I found quite funny, but I guess they are sort of on show as they have this whole educational thing going on inside the boathouse. For me, I just enjoyed being on the beach, chilling with a coffee and watching the wheels go by, but that's just me. The kids will love the boathouse and the boats.
It was difficult to get a half decent image of the boat itself as it was so tight inside the boathouse, but I tried..
Met this faceless bloke in fancy dress costume.. definitely not impressed by me!
This quaint little place does have it's history, the lifeboat service here actually began sometime in 1867. The first boathouse they had ran up until 1922, after that they built a concrete boathouse to make room for the new motorized lifeboats and at the time the station was the most advanced in the country. They kept on making more improvements over the years and with these improvements, the rescue service itself sped up drastically, to roughly 14 minutes call out time.
In 2009 the old station was demolished to make way for a part public funded new state of the art station, which was built around the old one that dated back to the 19th century, preserving the history of this place. Now after it's opening in 2010 their target is for the lifeboat to reach 95% of casualties within 30 minutes of being launched out of the boathouse and down the ramp, and the ability to get to any point within 50 miles of Bembridge. Pretty impressive!
So a short little trip today, but I thought it was worth posting, the views and general laid back atmosphere is what gets me and I just enjoyed getting that across.. it's chill here folks!
I put a filtered the image below to accentuate the feeling I had at the time of actually being in the Tru-man show. Uncanny isn't it?
Thanks for checking out my post today Steemers and if you enjoy then please give us a follow and i'll follow back.
Much love!
Jon :)
