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To the South east of Portland Bill lies the three-mile long Sandbank, known as the Shambles, this sandbank is almost a mile wide and some mile and a half from the nearest point of land, and no more than thirteen feet deep at low water at the Eastern end.
From Portland Bill to Lyme Regis, a distance of almost thirty miles, there is no safe anchorage except in the finest of weather, for Bridport Harbour (known as West Bay Harbour) is dangerous to enter if not impossible in rough weather. With the wind between South West and North West it is the most dangerous of lee shores, to be avoided at all costs, for countless vessels have been caught within the extended arc of the West Bay and utterly destroyed. Many were lost so swiftly that their names were never known, as on the 25th December 1600 when more then 20 ships were wrecked on Chesil Beach including the privateer Isobel, and the Spanish vessel she was pursuing.
Between Portland and Bridport is the steeply shelving shingle beach, where the sea is deceptively deep, right in close to the shore. The waves curl and fall with such force that no wooden hull, and few iron hulls, could withstand. There is also a deadly undertow, a rushing back of the water dragging men from their feet and under the next wave. The waves are often thunderous, and fall like a hammer blow upon the beach. Beyond Weymouth, the coast changes to miles of sheer cliffs and treacherous ledges, that reach out under the sea.. There are also headlands with strong tides before reaching Poole Bay.
For hundreds of years, wrecked vessels were plundered; this became so serious that an Act of Parliament was passed in 1713. "To better protect the fate of vessels in distress and their cargoes". But it had little effect along the more remote and isolated parts of the coast, and Portland was certainly one of those. Although it is true that tales of wrecking are deeply embedded in the folklore of most coastal areas, there is a great difference between plunder and wreck. Certainly there was systematic looting of wrecked vessels, their equipment, cargo and the possessions of the crew and any passengers they may have been carrying. But as for the callous act of luring vessels upon a coast to their destruction, what sailor on a dark and stormy night would make for a light seen on a lee shore. So it should not come as a surprise that Portlanders, have long regarded the plundering of wrecks as their God given right, a way of improving a life of great hardship.
Rope, timber for both building and for fires, salt beef and pork and sometimes rice, grain, fruit, wine and household goods, to keep a poor family though the winter. All would be spirited away, for what could not be used, could be sold later.
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