When it’s hot and stuffy on land, one option is to get out on the water and feel the breeze as you sail along. With this in mind, I joined family on board the SS Shieldhall for the first of their summer sailings. Steamship Shieldhall is the largest working steamship in the UK, staffed fully by volunteers who keep it running as a charity.

The journey was from Southampton Docks in to Portsmouth Harbour and back again, a smooth journey that was pretty relaxing. You get the run of the ship, even an opportunity to go down into the engine room (although it was SO HOT, it really undid a lot of the cooling work from the rest of the journey), and up on the bridge to see the captain at work.

I managed to spend an afternoon on the boat but didn’t remember to take any actual photos of the boat, which was an oversight, but actually the stuff we saw along the way was more interesting.

Good views of the Isle of Wight.

And, of course, for a fort/bunker/island fan such as myself, the Solent Forts came into view. These babies are still for sale and I believe have just had their price reduced to about £3.6m, so I’m only just under four million short.

Portsmouth Harbour was playing host to HMS Queen Elizabeth, one of the new giant aircraft carriers that have been pretty controversial and troublesome so far. No sign of Top Gun activity though.

It was a nice day, very relaxing after a stressful couple of weeks, and although I was mildly conflicted about the environmental impact of the steamship itself, it was hard to fault the enthusiasm of the volunteers on board.