Framedlight

That evening I went down to the beach at Cobo Bay to get some night time shots. Guernsey is an official 'dark sky' location and a good place to see the Milky Way. The group were playing with light effects, so I had a little go at that as well. For the sky pictures I kept my speed down to 30 seconds so that the stars did not appear as streaks. This did not appear to be as short a time needed for this and there is a little streaking.

On a cloudy morning we had an expedition to Moulin Huet beach. There is a small car park at the top of the cliff and you descend down by a large number of steps, hoping that you can spring up them again on your return. R enoi r spent 2 months in Guernsey, in the late summer of 1883 and produced four paintings of the beach. I looked at the one kept in the National Gallery in London, and I must admit was not that impressed. So I Googled for some cr iticism, which I did not find. Instead I came across a paper produced by John House for the Guernsey Museum and Art Gallery. In this he quotes from a Guernsey guide book, and this is what must have set the Artist's pulse racing. "Barbet’s Guide for the Island of Guernsey  of 1840 added a further dimension to Moulin Huet’s appeal: ‘The overhanging precipices, largely indented with fissures, the impetuous waves rolling upon the pebbly beach below and breaking with violence upon the rocks detached from the cliff, toget...

Of all the fortifications we had seen on Guernsey that day, the ones at Pleinmont were the most interesting. We drove there straight from Saumarez but it was nearly 5.00pm by the time we arrived and, being October, the light was going. But as it drew towards sunset the grey skies made way for some lovely light and a rainbow. Fort Pleinmont is on the Torteval peninsula at the extreme south east of the island. Here there are various structures built by the Germans when they occupied Guernsey in World War II. Building Hitler's wall on Guernsey took thousands of men drafted in as slave labour, mainly from France, and an enormous amount of concrete. The number of German soldiers brought onto the island was also extreme, one soldier for every two members of the native population. We first went into an underground bunker which had a base for a 22cm cannon. It was quite eerie going into these confined spaces. Next we had a look at a command post that has a scenic v...

After visiting the quarry at Les Vardes, we had some lunch and then headed out to The German Underground Hospital in the St Andrews' area of Guernsey. It was a dank afternoon and this giant system of tunnels certainly suited the mood. The nearly 7,000 square metres of underground chambers were dug out using slave labour between 1942 and 1943, originally for a machine gun company and then as an ammunition store. In 1944 part of the complex was converted to a military hospital and used for German soldiers injured at D-Day. However the damp moist air of the tunnels was not conducive to a fast recovery and the invasion of Guernsey by the allies after D-Day did not take place, so the hospital was decommissioned. The tunnels are mainly bare, damp and cold. It is certainly an eerie place and I would not like to have to spend a night there. In fact you have to show your tickets again as you go out to ensure that does not happen. Sounds are magnified and hollow. I have posted a link to...