Facing Bembridge lifeboat station, turn left and follow the path along the sea wall, by the Lifeboat View Café and beach huts. Step down at the end and continue along the beach. This is easiest when the tide is part-way out and you can walk on sand rather than shingle. Look for a handrail up on the left by a wooden fence; scramble over the shingle bank and turn up the steps here. Follow the path straight inland – it becomes a wide gravel drive. Turn right at the end of the wall onto a broad path. This runs between houses, to emerge onto a lane. Where the lane bends sharp left, take the footpath right, signed to Ducie Avenue and Bembridge Point. Cross a lane and keep ahead. Descend slightly and meet the road (B3394) on the corner, opposite the distinctive Pilot Boat Inn.

From the Victorian drinking fountain, follow the pavement along the road around Bembridge Harbour. The road skirting the harbour is Embankment Road, built in 1878 for a quarter of a million pounds, a princely sum in those days. Boat sheds and chandlers give way to houseboats. Continue past the café on Fisherman’s Pontoon. Cross the sluice bridge over the River Yar to enter St Helens, and turn right onto Latimer Road. Keep ahead at the end, towards the harbour. Turn right at the wall, and follow the path left and right, then across the dam. This was constructed for the former tide mill. The walk across the dam gives good views back across the harbour and of the old mill workings.

The dam leads to The Duver, once a golf course and now a National Trust property designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest because of its population of 250 or so different, and sometimes rare, wild plants. Follow the arrows ahead across the grass and turn left along the access road. (For toilets, Baywatch on the Beach café and St Helen’s Old Church, continue straight ahead here, through the dunes and turn left along the shore walk.)

Take the footpath through the hedge, opposite Old Church Lodge, where the access road bends. Go through a kissing gate and walk up the right-hand field edge. Cross a gated wooden bridge and keep right, by a fence. Walk straight up the field to a metal kissing gate, and turn right along the road. Soon turn left through the gateway of the Priory Bay Hotel and walk up the drive. At a second gateway, fork left onto a bridleway along the edge of a wood. Follow this sharp right to cross the drive ahead, and follow this track past houses all the way down to Seagrove Bay. Turn left immediately beyond the public toilets on an enclosed path, signed to Seaview. This track soon becomes a gravel road. Veer right at the end and turn left along the sea wall for a short distance, then follow the road up the hill. This brings you into attractive Seaview village. Turn right down the High Street, passing the Seaview Hotel (public toilets throught the lobby) to Nettlestone Point at the bottom, with superb views over the Solent and No Man’s Land Fort to Portsmouth.

Turn left here, passing The Old Fort Bar/Café and the yacht club. Bear right onto the sea wall. Where this meets a road, continue ahead along the wall. Pass the Hersey Nature Reserve, where wildlife has overtaken the former salt pans. At low tide, it is pleasant to take to the sands here.

By The Boat House pub at the far end, continue ahead along the sea wall, past a row of beach huts. Ryde’s 0.5 mile long (800m) pier can be clearly seen in the distance, with the roar of the Red Jet passenger ferry and the hovercrafts. Pass more beach huts and the The Dell Café at Puckpool Point, and follow the curving bay round. Keep ahead through Appley Park, past the castellated viewing tower, a picturesque folly built in 1875. Pass more beach huts and toilets, to reach the amusements which mark the entry into Ryde. Pass the large boating lake and follow the roadside past the harbour buildings all the way to the pier.