Isle of Wight ferry services Isle of Wight ferry services There are currently three different ferry companies that operate vessels carrying passengers and, on certain routes, vehicles across the Solent, the stretch of sea that separates the Isle of Wight from mainland England. These are Wightlink, Red Funnel and Hovertravel. Since the Isle of Wight was separated from mainland Britain, probably about 7000 years ago, vessels have transported people and goods across the Solent. However the earliest record of an Isle of Wight ferry service is from 1420 when the Lord of the Manor in Ashey was responsible for boats crossing between Portsmouth and Ryde.
Geology of the Isle of Wight the sequence ranges from Cenomanian through to Campanian, The upper boundary is an unconformity across which rocks of Maastrichtian to Paleocene age are missing. Rocks of Palaeogene age rest unconformably on the Upper Cretaceous sequence on the Isle of Wight. Most of the Palaeocene is missing, in common with all of onshore UK. The Palaeogene strata were deposited in a shallow water marine environment, which was affected by repeated changes in relative sea level, causing cycles of transgression and regression. The Lambeth Group is well exposed at the southern end of Alum Bay and Whitecliff Bay at the western and