I was going through some old holiday photos the other day and came across this cheeky little fellow: I posted him on my Instagram account, but couldn't remember much about him, except that I'd snapped him in the northern German town of Lubeck several years ago. (There's an umlaut on that 'u', by the way, [...]
Okay, I'm exaggerating a little there - we didn't get snow and we didn't get a heatwave. But we did get pretty much everything else, from flat grey skies to pouring rain, and then when that cleared, sunshine and a gale force wind. Interestingly, it was quite a choppy trip down from Lerwick overnight but [...]
A quick bounce down the coast saw us moored up in Lerwick, capital of the Shetland Islands, on Friday morning. We grabbed a quick breakfast, donned boots and waterproofs and set off to explore. The weather wasn't particularly kind - pouring with rain and blowing what I believe is known as a 'hoolie' north of [...]
Things gradually calmed down overnight after our exciting trip to St Kilda, as we chugged steadily north-westwards for our first ever visit to the Shetland islands. The heavy swell still had the last word, though, as we were three hours late getting to our destination: the small, northern Shetland island of Fetlar. This was a real [...]
Overnight from Orkney the weather really started to deteriorate. This shouldn't have mattered, as our itinerary showed us heading north to calmer waters, before turning south-west on a course for the remote island of St Kilda. However, for reasons known only to himself, the ship's captain decided to cut the corner by sailing through the [...]
By Tuesday we were due at Kirkwall on the Orkney 'mainland' (ie, the largest island). Overnight, though, the problems with the ship had really started to show themselves. We were due to leave Hoy at midnight, but after much clanking, grinding and banging the engines were switched off and we stayed put. The same thing [...]
After our undignified departure from Leith, we chugged steadily northwards overnight and arrived on Monday at the Orkney island of Hoy. More specifically, the quay at the village of Lyness on the island's east coast. We knew a little of the area's history: the fact that the British Navy was based here during both World [...]
