Freshwater Bay, Isle of Wight

West Wight's prettiest pocket bay: a small horseshoe of shingle backed by chalk, with the Stag and Mermaid rocks offshore and Tennyson Down rising to the east. The big win here is airspace simplicity — the Island's west has no FRZ at all (the ATZs at Bembridge and Sandown are 20km-plus away east), so the map is refreshingly clean. Launch from the public bay, the slipway or the pay-and-display car park just behind it, and you can work the chalk stacks and cliff line for classic west-coast shots. The important boundary is ownership: the downland flanking the bay — Tennyson Down and Afton Down — is National Trust, which bans TOAL, so keep your take-off and landing on the public bay/car park and don't launch from the down. Fly with care near the cliff faces; gulls, coastal updraught and reflected gusts off the chalk all bite. It's a natural jumping-off point for the dramatic Military Road coast to the west, though bear in mind much of that clifftop (Compton, Brook, Mottistone) is also NT land. Best on a calm morning around low tide.