I am not going to argue with you on this, that was my very first thought but could n't reconcile the gap as land when it looks like sea but I guess the centre of the IOW is quite low. i did think teh cliffs were too white for the bit behind Portsmouth but i have only seen them from a car...
These pictures are a few years old (2011). I knew it was the IOW as you can see it 50-100 days a year from high spots in Brighton. Often it is a smudge, less often it is a very well defined shape and this one of those days.They usually occur around storms when I guess the air is cleanest though...
This is not a trick/false picture it is down to the atmospheric conditions. It was taken with a pentax dslr using a 40 year old pentax lens.
I originally thought it was the cliff/hill at the back of portsmouth but when I drove past that a while back it did not big enough or white enough...
This picture was taken from top of Bear Road and in the centre shows the IOW (sorry if I am stating the obvious). However hat I cannot work out what/where the white cliffs are in the smaller landmass as I thought everything down to Portsmouth was flat. Any thoughts?