Saturday. Breakfast and off to Unst

On Saturday morning we were invited to breakfast at some friends. Steve knew Andrew from University, and from a three week stint covering for another doctor in Lerwick about 14 years ago.
Andrew is now a part time General Practitioner in Walls on the western mainland of Shetland and they have a beautiful home located on a bay looking south. It was originally a croft house that they used for weekends and vacations. There was no running water and no electricity. It is at the end of a gravel road about 3 miles from Walls. Over 17 years they have improved and added to the house (including getting water from the village, and electricity. Andrew has shown his carpentry skills and built most of the shelving and doors from materials recycled from abandoned churches and other buildings locally.
Andrew will be a participant in one of the squads at Up Helly A on Tuesday. It is an honor to be invited to a squad and you would have to be a permanent Shetland resident for at least five years to be considered. We have no idea what his squad’s costume is this year as it is a closely guarded secret. Last year they were penguins, which may give you some indication of what to expect!
Andrew is a quiet almost shy person so the contrast is intriguing.
Susan is a Community Nurse and with a combination of their professions and the small population they are well known and well liked in the community.
One thing we discussed was Shetlanders approach to non native born residents.
We concluded that they were initially curious as to your background and pretty straightforward about asking, but once that was done you were left alone to follow your own life and rarely criticized. In other words what you do is your business and within bounds they were, and are perfectly happy for you to live your life without someone trying to tell you how to live it. I find that delightful and refreshing.
All this fun and good food meant that we were late leaving for our drive to Unst, but we caught the two o clock ferry from Toft on the mainland to Yell, the next island north. I was surprised that the ferry was both bigger and much fancier than I had imagined and much fancier than the one we took in Ireland across to Bere Island.
While waiting in the line (queue) to drive on to the ferry we met a patient of Alison’s Delano Jennings, and his friend Davy Hamar who were also driving up to Unst. Davy is a sea captain and now runs the tourist boat out to Muckle Flugga in the summers. It is known locally as “The Flugga”. More about The Flugga in a later post. We are planning to hike there tomorrow.
Delano is a big guy with a big gray beard (see photos). He was born in the Falkland Islands in the south Atlantic, roughly as far south as we are north (sixty degrees) He left there before the war with Argentina in 1982 and has lived on Shetland since then. We shared some hot chocolate (from a machine) during the passage in a very comfortable lounge.
After docking we headed across the island of Yell to the next ferry that gets us on to Unst. A quick crossing to Unst and then only about 15 minutes to the house we are staying at in Westbay. More about that in a separate post. Basic house and house approach pictures shown, but more detail to come.
Enjoy

Friday..More

On the road to Vementry this afternoon we passed the settlement of Twatt. Not wishing to pass up an opportunity we stopped by the sign and took four photos. Two of Steve Grey hat) and two of me, (in my green Jen special hat).

We invite comments and votes on who is the best Pratt in a Hat at Twatt? (Ask any Brit for a translation). Pathetic I know for a couple of guys who should know better. Oh well. It is who we are.  I am sideways and Steve is correctly oriented!!

My apologies that some images are sideways. I am still trying to figure out how to cure this, with no success so far 

Friday. Roaming on Shetland mainland

Sorry for the long delay in the posts but we have been in remote places without access to the internet, I will get caught up with a few posts in the next couple of days. I am also going to post a link to Snapfish for additional photos should you be interested.

It blew again all last night and this morning so far. As I said in the “quick post” all the ferry service has been cancelled for the next 3 days so from the point of view

of being here for Up Helly A. we made a good choice. It remains to be seen if some of the musicians who were scheduled actually make it.

Steve and I braved the elements and went for a drive to Sandness which is about as far west as you can go on the mainland. It consists of maybe 20 houses, all spread out, a village hall, Post Office/store and a factory that knits woolen products, Jamison Woolens.

There was a sign that visitors were welcome and we went in. They said we were welcome to “wander around and ask anyone we saw any questions. Also “Please do not touch anything that looks dangerous or is moving”. That appeared to be the extent of the Safety Briefing! Needless to say we complied. They make scarves, sweaters and other articles in traditional weaves. We saw several boxes marked for “Simply Shetland” a store in Washington state as well as other destinations like Tokyo. It looks like they employ about 10-12 people and most of the machinery was likely recycled from other mills that have closed. Some machines seemed to run on punch card readers rather than computer controlled.

We drove around on mostly single lane roads. The way it works is that there are designated “Passing Places” about 100 yards apart on more frequently traveled roads and maybe 300 yards on less traveled roads. Who ever is nearest the passing place pulls over and the car coming the other way passes with a customary wave, or at night a toot on the horn. All very courteous and civilized!

The roads are really in excellent shape all across the islands and places I have been to so far. The edges are marked in white (on the single lane roads there is no centerline!) and there are posts on the sides on curves and low places to mark the road in the snow.

Steve is keen to see some otters, and we hope we can achieve this on Unst over the weekend.

We saw some seals today in one of the harbors and counted nine in one place. The best photo I got is pathetic and only shows three. They are curious creatures and stick their heads up and then dive and come up in a slightly different location, having told their mates that there is something of interest on an otherwise (otterwise?) dull boring day in the life of a seal!

We are off out this evening to Lerwick for dinner at an Indian restaurant. I do not know the name but Alison took care of the owner’s wife recently. We are also going to the “Ghurka Kitchen” on Monday I think. It is Nepalese and Indian food. Who would have thought it in Shetland .

  

Shetland. First day. It's a windy place!!

We survived!. Actually other than some rocking and rolling the whole journey was a non-event. Just as I like it. There are a couple of photos of the ferry at dock and one of Rhino checking out the scene from our cabin (comfy) as well as the cabin itself.
We arrived in Lerwick on time at 7.30 this morning, and after some initial confusion about the rental car we are now established at Alison’s house, which looks out on the sound about 10 miles out of Lerwick. It is north of 60 degrees here and so in the winter the days are really short. It was still dark at 8am and will be dark again before 4pm. To put it in perspective Raleigh is about 32 North and the US/Canadian border generally follows the 50 deg. north parallel.
The house (photo included as well as several of the surrounding area) is a typical “Haar” which is the larger style of traditional Shetland house with three dormer windows on the second floor. The other typical style is a simple croft house and I will get photos of both styles posted as soon as I can.
Steve warned me that the more prevalent style of “architecture” on Shetland is pebbledash houses that have no architectural value at all. Lerwick and the surrounding area is full of them and it is such a pity. We talked with a Shetland resident and the issues that relate to renovating old crofts are very complex and relate to people leaving in the 1800s but still having the right to the land. You could potentially renovate a croft and then someone comes along and claims the property as theirs at a later date. Not a good plan
The general landscape is stark with VERY few trees on any of the islands and lots of low hills with fairly poor grassland and sheep….lots of sheep. There are about 22,000 residents on Shetland and about 350,000 sheep!
The sun shone for a few minutes this morning, but it has clouded up again now and the wind has picked up. The forecast for tomorrow and Saturday is for winds between 35 and 40 knots (40-45 mph) and temperatures in the low 40s. Check out that wind-chill factor!
There are a variety of small local ferries that connect the islands. Some are charged for and some are free. There are also subsidies for the islanders for airfares and ferry fares to the mainland. Not so for visitors! We pay full price.
There is also local air service in a Britten Norman Islander (twin engine 7 seater) from the local Tingwall airstrip out to some of the islands. Sector times can be as little as 10 minutes but by car and or ferry can be several hours.
There is a service in Orkney (next set of islands down) from Westray to Papa Westray where the scheduled flight time is 2 minutes. That is the shortest scheduled flight in the world. I plan to do it some day. I will take a local flight here if I get the opportunity also.

Steve has been telling me about a local piece of history called “The Shetland Bus”. It was based out of a house called “Kergord” (the photo of the house with a tree in front) and operated during WW2. It was basically a covert way to land arms and munitions into Norway, and land agents and extract same as well as refugees. The naval part of the operation was out of Scalloway, which does not seem to make sense as it is on the west side and would have involved sailing around the bottom or the top of the mainland. Guess it fooled the enemy as the whole operation continued throughout the war!!.
When we are on Unst over the weekend we will visit the very north of the island where one of the early warning radar installations from the Cold War era was located. It was designed to give early warning of any invasion or attack from Russia. Those were the days. No ICBMs and no Taliban or Al Quada blowing them selves up indiscriminately. Just bombs on military airplanes.

Stormy Aberdeen and the ferry to Lerwick in Shetland. 60 deg North

Well, we are finally on board the ferry. Steve arrived this afternoon and Geoff, Ellie and I had eaten lunch at the Inversnecky Café an Aberdeen icon well known for it’s awesome bacon sandwiches!

We also sat for a while near the harbor entrance and watched the stormy seas and several supply vessels enter the harbor.

I am amazed at the size and complexity of the vessels and how specialized they are. There are anchor boats that manipulate and place the anchors that hold the giant rigs in place and dive vessels that have wave compensating cranes to lower the diving chambers. The divers may be in the chamber for a week at a time sometimes on the seabed and sometimes in the chamber on the deck. When they eventually come out it is after a considerable period of decompression. They earn a LOT of money, but the emphasis is on earn as it is tough and dangerous work.

The North Sea oil and gas business is huge and while Aberdeen is the center of this activity, Shetland is an important center also.

There do not appear to be many people on the ferry this evening. It sails daily (weather permitting) and is one of three similar vessels that serve both Orkney and Shetland and is absolutely the lifeline for the islands and permit the continuation of a lifestyle that has been in place for thousands of years.

We have just had the safety briefing and are ready to get underway. We have been told that it may be a rough journey so we will see!!

Update. We are two hours out and I can see the town of Peterhead off to the west. We had fish (fresh haddock) and chips for dinner followed by fresh fruit salad, and chili chocolate in our cabin. Excellent

We are rolling and there is the occasional bump, but it is not unpleasant at all. Steve thinks it may get “more interesting” when we get out in more open water off the north end of Scotland around midnight.

Aberdeen and Eastern Scotland

Monday morning saw me on the train to Aberdeen. This was a local train to Newcastle, and then an express to Edinburgh passing along the Northumberland coast passing by Lindisfarne (also known as Holy Island). It is separated from the mainland by a causeway that floods at high tide. It is also an important site in Celtic culture. The only stop between Newcastle and Edinburgh is Berwick on Tweed a small port and close to where my brother Steve has a house that he is renovating and remodeling.
The connection in Edinburgh was tight (about 5 minutes) but I made it. The Aberdeen train takes a little over 2 hours to cover the 130 miles. Again the train hugs the coast in the most part and at some points gets very close to the sea. It was a gorgeous sunny day and I was of course delighted to see my long time friends Geoff and Ellie.
The weather held up Tuesday and Geoff and I went down the coast to Dunnotter Castle. It is an incredible place and my photos do not do it justice. The castle ruins stand high above the North Sea, and to get to it you go down a series of steps and back up the other side. Geoff and I discussed how the place could have been built in the first place. We really have no idea, but have some appreciation of the enormity of the task.

We went on down to St Cyrus for a walk along the beach, and saw an underground house that looked out over the dunes and out to see. Interesting place. On to Montrose and visited the much smaller harbor which is another base for the oil and gas rigs offshore. The overall economy of the Aberdeen area has been much less affected by the economic downturn that in most other places.
We came back via Laurencekirk where they have recently reopened the railway station (many stations and lines were closed by Beeching in the 60s). It is a commutable distance from both Dundee and Aberdeen. The station has been delightfully restored and the town has seen an upturn in business and growth as a consequence of the reopening. Yeah!!
Steve is on his way up to Aberdeen this morning (Wed) and we are away to Shetland on the ferry this evening. It is an overnight service, and the ferry is about 110 meters long and has a gross weight of about 12,000 tonnes.
We have a cabin booked and are hoping for a smooth sailing. Forecast is 6 deg C (42f) and winds at 35 knots!!
I will let you know when we get to Lerwick.

Off to Aberdeen

First a word of explanation about my travel companion Rhino prompted by a question from my son Alistair yesterday.
Way back in the day when I actually worked for a living at Caterpillar, I was on a team working on "Project Rhino". The reason for the name is top secret, but we had small gifts for visitors to remind them of the project. They are squishy rhino toys and quite friendly, unlike real rhinos. My friend Nick took me to the airport and gave me Rhino as a travelling companion and as a gift from the Project Rhino team. Thank you. He will be appearing in the blog along the theme of the gnome who appears in photos and postcards around the world. Thank you for your indulgence in this explanation!!

It is early Monday morning. My brother Steve is away to work and the house is quiet.
I am off to Aberdeen on the East coast of Scotland today to meet up with my long time friends Geoff and Ellie.

Aberdeen is the hub for much of the support activity for the North Sea oil and gas production, and the harbor is full of supply vessels and equipment and is a busy place. Many of the workers on the rigs work 2 or 3 weeks straight and then have the same amount of time off. I know of some that actually have homes in Spain and come off the rigs in the often cold and always windy North Sea, and hop a plane to sunny Spain for their time off.
Geoff and I worked together way back and after a rough start became very good friends and I am happy to say that the friendship has endured for close to 30 years!

Steve and I had a pleasant weekend as the weather gradually improved and we went for a walk yesterday (Sun) morning with the intent of going to a place called Waters Meet, where the north and south branches of the Tyne river meet. It is abobout a mile west of Hexham where he currently lives. The path proved to be too icy so we walked along the swollen river and sloshed about in the mud for a while before taking a different route home. It was sunny and about 6 deg C a pleasant change from previous weeks.
We had reports from Shetland that the wind on Saturday was blowing 44 knots (almost 50mph) and the Friday ferry to Aberdeen was canceled in both directions. This is the same ferry we will take on Wednesday evening. It takes about 12 hours,and is about 110 meters long and carries cars and trucks as well as passengers. I will be posting photos when I have some.
Hmmm. On Saturday I could select the font, but do not see that option today. Sorry Bruce, but it looks like Times New Roman is the font of the day. Who came up with those funky names anyway??