Sea
By far the main form of access is by ship from the mainland, with regular vehicle ferry services and passenger services being available through the ferry companies:
Red Funnel operates a car and passenger service between Southampton and East Cowes. High speed passenger-only services to Southampton operate from Cowes with Red Funnel's "Red Jet" catamarans
Wightlink operates a car and passenger service between Portsmouth and Fishbourne (near Ryde), and between Lymington and Yarmouth. It also operates a passenger-only service between Portsmouth Harbour (train station) and Ryde Pier Head (train station), using catamarans new in 2009.
Hovertravel carries passengers between Southsea Hoverport and Ryde aboard a hovercraft.
There are regular proposals for further routes, and during Cowes Week additional services have been known to operate — notably a fast catamaran service between Cowes and Lymington.
Read more about this topic: Transport On The Isle Of Wight
Famous quotes containing the word sea:
“For half a mile from the shore it was one mass of white breakers, which, with the wind, made such a din that we could hardly hear ourselves speak.... This was the stormiest sea that we witnessed,—more tumultuous, my companion affirmed, than the rapids of Niagara, and, of course, on a far greater scale. It was the ocean in a gale, a clear, cold day, with only one sail in sight, which labored much, as if it were anxiously seeking a harbor.... It was the roaring sea, thalassa exeessa.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Generation on generation, your neck rubbed the windowsill
of the stall, smoothing the wood as the sea smooths glass.”
—Donald Hall (b. 1928)
“When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth o’erflow?
If the winds rage, doth not the sea wax mad,
Threatening the welkin with his big-swollen face?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)