Departure Imminent

10am local time here in Lerwick; ETD is now 12noon. Forecast is for light winds for several days; hopefully they won’t be so light that we’re motoring a lot. But as with any sailing trip: what we see is what we’ll get.

A quick hodge-podge of photos from the past few days here in Shetland…

The Isle of Noss

The bird rookery on the Isle of Noss: all those white dots are birds and nests

Overview of Lerwick Harbor from Fort Charlotte

The Lerwick skyline

Pedestrian streets in Lerwick

Cannon’s-eye view of the water in front of Lerwick

Lerwick City Hall

It was Royal National Lifesaving Institution open day on Saturday in Lerwick. Serious lifeboats over here.

Helicopter low pass

Alternate views of history: over here, John Paul Jones is a “renegade.”

Scenes from Symbister, Whalsay, Shetland

More scenes from Symbister

And still more scenes from Symbister

Scalloway Castle

Waterfront garden in Scalloway

Found my relatives in Scalloway

Enjoying a pint in the pub in Scalloway

Last Night in Lerwick

8 June 2011
2315

Lying in my bunk on Polar Bear’s final night in Lerwick. Just had yet another wonderful meal — though the least great and most expensive of our time here in the Shetlands — and the northern twilight at this late hour peeks in the hatch above. I’ve really dug my time here in the Shetlands but it’s time to go.

What is it about here that I’ve enjoyed? Among other things, the region is starkly beautiful. It’s a bit like Alaska (as I suspect all such high-latitude places are to some extent) but it’s more civilized, to a certain extent (British folk laugh when you say you consider the Shetlands civilized). There are roads, cultivated fields, towns, societal plusses such as museums and restaurants and culture. But there’s also brutal weather, cold water, rugged landscapes, hard people and a long journey to get to mainstream civilization. The Shetlands are like a grown-up version of Alaska: the roughness is still there but there’s an appreciation that maybe you’ve earned some of the good things at this point in life. I will definitely come back here someday.

And when I do, I’ll be sure to do more exploring. The old saying about cruising is that it’s really just a case of performing boat repairs in scenic locales; we’re not doing any repairs, per se, but there’s still a ton of work to do. And it never seems to be that we can do everything in the course of a day and have another day to go exploring. I’d have liked to have gone for a hike or rented a bicycle, and there are a couple of brochs — Iron Age ruins that are world renowned — hereabouts that would have been great to visit.

I did head over to the west side of this island a couple of days ago. A quick cab ride over to the Atlantic Ocean side brought me to the village of Scalloway, home of the appropriately named Scalloway Castle. Built in 1600 by Patrick Stewart (who knew he’d done anything before “Star Trek: The Next Generation”?!), what’s left of the stone fortress looks out over a natural inlet from the sea and was cool to wander around. You could really get the feel of what it was like: the rooms were restored well and the sense of festivities in the great hall was really palpable. The village itself had a nice hotel/restaurant where we enjoyed a couple of pints in delightfully warm sunshine before returning to Lerwick.

I’ve already mentioned the great food here; that’s another plus to Lerwick. And the downtown region really is quaint and cute, with stone buildings (including a city-hall clock tower on the hilltop overlooking the harbor that rings out on the quarter-hour with EXACTLY the same timbre as the bells at my prep school back in New Hampshire), slate-covered pedestrian-only streets, and friendly, open locals (including, it must be pointed out, far more attractive women than the 10-times-larger Newcastle area had on display; must be the Nordic blood from way back).

But it was here on the dock in town where I had my first experience with what it’s like to be an American abroad in this day and age. We moved Polar Bear back to the floating dock yesterday afternoon, after an enormous Princess cruise ship left (the cruise ship launches use the pontoons so we visiting yachts have to move while they’re here) and one of several Norwegian sailboats tied up a few feet in front of our bow.

I was securing the lines on the dock when the captain approached. He was an older guy with a stereotypically colorful sweater and wool captain’s hat and, seeing my Alaska magazine T-shirt and hearing me speak asked, “Are you American?” “Yes,” I replied. “And the captain’s Dutch,” I said, pointing to Boogie up on deck, “and the boat is English.” The guy sneered and stepped past me to talk to Boogie; fine by me, I was busy and could have cared less about the sudden thaw in the guy’s demeanor.

He asked Boogie if he spoke German — in German — and when Boogie said yes, continued on, saying that German was easier for him…and that this way the American wouldn’t understand, would he? I looked at him, paused for a second and deadpanned, in German, “a little.” I then told him, also in German, that I had lived in Germany 20 years ago. The guy looked like he’d seen a ghost before catching himself up and, mock-saluting me, said in English, “You must be a soldier then” Rather than throw him in the harbor I simply said, “No, a hockey player” and went back to the lines.

So yeah…it’s time to head back to sea. I’m anxious about not getting to more fully explore this area that has quite definitely captivated me; I’m longing to get out and do/learn more about operating a modern yacht; I’m getting grief from Euros (another Norwegian sailor at dinner a week ago started in on the whole America/Obama/wars/Afghanistan thing after a few drinks so I’m a little nervous that this is gonna be the response once we reach Norway); and it’s just plain time to move on to the next place. I’m on this trip for adventure — to see new places — so let’s go.

Game plan is to head out around 10am or so tomorrow (Thursday); should be in Bodo, Norway, sometime Monday. With four watches to cycle through, I’m hoping to get writing more during my down times. I’ll post all that once I reach Bodo. I’ll post this right now and get some photos up in the morning before we leave.

From Last Week

Jotted this stuff down late last week but never posted it — I was expecting to get back to it and finish/improve it. But it’s now been so long that…$#%$% it. Here it is; take it for what it is: notes and gibberish.

2 June 2011
1930

To paraphrase the bumper stickers: New York, London, Paris, Tokyo, Symbister.  

That’s right: Symbister. Not far from Isbister, Skwa and Clett (you don’t even wanna know the pronunciation of that one). This small settlement is on a slope overlooking the harbor that opens to the northwest. Beside the road snaking up the hill, lambs actually gambol. They do; it’s true. Wildflowers bend in the relentless breeze and from the top of the hill, the views in all direction (beneath the low overcast) are spectacular.

It was on that relentless breeze that we sailed over from Lerwick today. We slipped what was left of our docklines — the chafing done by the concrete pier was shocking in its efficiency — under a fierce westerly. Before Polar Bear had even left the harbor, the bimini had to be removed and stowed below lest it wind up kiting over Bressay Island and on toward Norway.

The sea was relatively flat despite the solid 30-plus knots of wind as we rounded north of Bressay. We unfurled about 75 percent of the staysail and were ripping along, doing a good 7.5 knots toward our destination: the isle of Noss, just east of Bressay and site of a huge bird rookery in the cliffs overlooking the North Sea. Nearer the cliffs, the swell increased a bit out of the south, and after checking out the thousands of birds — on the cliffs, in the water, gliding around on the wind — we tacked and bore off toward the north and Whalsay Island. 

0800
3 June

Dinner interrupted last evening’s typing. And a wonderful dinner it was: immediately after tying up in Symbister, a local fisherman stopped by to inquire about Polar Bear — and drop off a bag of monkfish he’d just caught. Boogie worked up the fish while Marlies worked up some risotto…et voila: a really nice dinner aboard. Anyway…

So, yeah: after Noss, we bore off toward the north before a pretty fierce wind: steadily in the high 30s and well into the  40s. The highest gust we saw was 51 knots. But because of the wind direction — from the west, from over the so-called Mainland — the water surface wasn’t too lumpy. Yes, we shipped a lot of water, but mostly from waves hitting the rail just so; there wasn’t really any swell to speak of and it was actually a quite comfortable ride.