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.