May 17, 2018

    During the night the sun fully set and there was darkness for a few hours before 4 a.m.  The sun was shining this morning as we walked on Deck 14 while the ship approached Lerwick, Shetland Islands.  Lerwick is the administrative center of the Shetland Islands and is located on the island named Mainland.  Soon the clouds had rolled in for a few hours and then cleared off for the rest of the day. The morning temperature was 6°C and the afternoon high was about 12°C with some wind, but not as strong as in Iceland. Just before 10 a.m. the ship anchored by Lerwick. The Shetland Islands are 100 of the remote northern Scottish islands in the North Sea that are north of the Orkney Islands. Lerwick’s latitude is close to Helsinki, Finland and in between the latitudes of Bergen, Norway and Oslo, Norway. Lerwick is a quaint walkable town with many late 19^thcentury and early 20^thcentury stone buildings in the first three or four streets up from the waterfront.

   Wi-Fi was still extremely slow, taking more than eight minutes to upload just one photo. As passengers left the pier everyone received a detailed map of Lerwick which was helpful later when we explored the town.

   There were tender boats transferring people from the ship to Victoria Pier in less than 10 minutes.  The Viking Sun ship of about 900 passengers was docked about a kilometer away.  The 1886 Victoria Pier is right in the center of the town. As you get to the road from the Victoria Pier there is a nice sign “Welcome to Shetland”.  This year 90 ships are expected to visit Lerwick and over 100 are schedules to visit in 2019.

  The Shetland Islands and Orkney Islands have only been part of Scotland for a little over 500 years. There is a strong connection to Norway. The Viking settlers brought the Norse language to the area.  It was a Norway holding until Norwegian princess Margaret married Scottish King James III in 1469. For her dowry, her father mortgaged the Shetland Islands and the Orkney Islands to finance it.  In 1472, he defaulted on the mortgage and the islands transferred to Scotland.  There is a stained-glass window in the Lerwick City Hall meeting room commemorating the event.

    The 60-minute drive started from the pier and passed St. Olaf church, the City Hall and houses covered with Welsh slate tiles or metal roofs. We passed a man cutting peat bricks from peat deposits.  They will dry over the summer and be used as heating fuel in the winter. The scenic ride passed pastures near heather covered hills and the Caledonian Mountains, which extend all the way through mainland Scotland.  Sheep, lambs, cattle and Shetland ponies grazed along the way to the Hoswick Visitor Center and the village of Sandwick. We drove through the hamlet of Fladdabister and the farming village of Aithsetter.  There was a quick photo stop to snap shots of Mousa Island.  At Hoswick Visitor Center there was a 30 minute shopping break.  There was a tiny museum in the center where a full warping machine was displayed.

   Further along the road we passed a ruined old house which was used as a location for the Netflix detective show “Shetland” not far from a cove of clear water and a sand beach full of grey seals and common seals basking in the sun.

   The bus literally drove through Sumburgh Airport right across a runway.  The road is controlled by a signal to stop traffic if an airplane is about take-off or land.  The only other place in the world where this happens is in the airport at the British colony of Gibraltar on the Mediterranean Sea.  From the airport planes fly to Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh and helicopters ferry oil platform crews to and fro. We continued further to the Sumburgh Hotel parking lot where we left the bus to visit the archeological site of the Jarlshof Ruins surrounded by pastures with sheep, lambs and Shetland ponies.  The location was chosen originally as a settlement, 4,000 years ago, in the Stone Age for its proximity to the clear water of the cove, West Voe, which is very close to the southern tip of Mainland where the Atlantic Ocean and North Sea currents converge. The waters off the point are known as the Roaring Tides and the water gives ships a rough passage. The land was fertile and there was rock at hand to use to build shelters.  Only the great hall of laird’s house was visible in 1890 when the farmer who owned the property discovered the hidden history of the site which is one of the most important archeological sites in the United Kingdom. There are also examples of Bronze Age houses, then on slightly higher ground an Iron Age broch, which was a double walled windowless tower, and wheelhouses. When the Vikings arrived from Norway they built long houses and brought the Norse language. Eventually a medieval farmstead occupied the site and a laird’s house dating from the 1500s when Queen Elizabeth I gave the Shetland Islands and the Orkney Islands to her half-brother. Remnants of structures from all these eras have been excavated here.  Part of the laird’s house has been washed away as the sea erodes the seaside.  The great hall of the Laird’s house, with partial walls and no roof, is about the length of the dining room that we saw last week in Ireland at Malahide Castle, but it is not as wide.  The author, Walter Scott, used the visible ruined great hall as inspiration for his novel, The Prince.  After the visit to Jarlshof Ruins we returned to Lerwick and explored some of the town.

  We climbed the gentle slope to Hillhead, the highest point in town and visited Lerwick Town Hall with its clock tower. The limestone building was built in 1887.  We went up the main staircase and into the main meeting hall where 17 stained glass windows grace the room, telling the story of Shetland.  One of the windows tells the story of 1066 when in the south of England William the Conqueror was invading, while further north, Norwegian King Harold Hardsada captured York, England. Then, in 1200, another Norwegian king, Hakon Hakonson, brought Greenland and Iceland under Norwegian rule. Next, we walked a block over to take a photo of the colourful tulips at King George VI Park. Then we walked over to Fort Charlotte with its commanding view of the Bressay Sound harbour. The working cannons were removed long ago, never have been used in defence of the town, but replica cannons have taken their place. The fort has earth and turf ramparts and a thick stone wall. Its construction started in 1655 but it was not completed until 1781 at the end of the War of American Independence. The state of the fort depicts how it looked in the 1780s.

   We strolled along Commercial Street passing three chocolate shops on our way to the bookstore that was across the narrow street from the Post Office.  To send a postcard internationally a stamp cost £ 1.25 or Canadian $2.16.  Next, we stopped at the bookstore and bought a paperback book which would have cost twice the amount in Iceland.  Then we walked back to the pier to take the tender boat back to the ship. We had to wait as the boat before completed loading and then, as soon as 85 or so passengers found seats, our tender left making room for another tender to take its place at the pier. All aboard was 5:30 and the Eclipse was leaving the harbour as we sat down to dinner at 6 p.m.  The sea was almost calm during the evening and overnight.

  Tonight’s dinner choices: Mixed green salad and shrimp cocktail as appetizers, entrées were Moroccan spiced lamb kebabs with bulgar and peppers and desserts were Coffee flavoured custard and New York Cheesecake with caramel sauce. Karen and Peter joined us for tea after dinner.

  Tonight’s show was presented by the quartet “The Flyboys”. The show was energetic with lots of familiar tunes.

   DIstance walked was 12.25 km