One part of the UK South Coast that most sailors dread is the Portland Bill. It is a huge lump of rock jutting out into the English Channel. The sea bed around it is very uneven and the tides can be horrendously strong creating huge waves in the race, making it a very dangerous piece of sea. Many ships have been lost there over the years. There are two ways to round the Bill, first and often considered the safest is to go offshore about 3-5 miles off. The 2nd is to go round close inshore, some descriptions suggest close enough to the rocks to throw a biscuit ashore. We left Portland marina early this morning to catch the slack tide at the Bill and went round close in on a flat sea. Not quite close enough to throw a biscuit on to the rocks, but fairly close. It was quite an anticlimax as the only danger seemed to be from the multiple crab and lobster pot markers that litter the area, waiting to get wrapped around a passing propeller. It would probably have been a different matter if we had been an hour or two later or earlier.