Day 4

Shaken by a slightly damp Cormac for the midnight watch and the final run into Shetland. 10 Minutes banging around in the dark, climbing into foulies and sailing boots, Lifejacket hat, head torch on red filter round neck and then head up on deck with a ‘hot wet’ (Cup of tea) kindly provided by Cormac before he tunneled into his sleeping bag again. A quick sip of my ‘hot’ wet only to discover Cormac has a slightly different definition of hot – maybe ‘tepid tea’ is a thing on the boats - submariners are a strange bunch.

Up on deck Kris had already sighted land and was willing us in. Sure enough an hour or so later we were in the imposing shadow of Bards rock and making our run into Lerwick, time to call up port control and ask for a berth for the night…….. I’ve lived in Scotland for 6 years and consider myself fluent in ‘Jockanese’…….. Only problem was port control seemed to be speaking a new language invented on the Shetland isles…….! A quick mental reset and I managed to work out roughly where he wanted us and we headed in to the soothing sound of Cormacs snores.

A remarkably smooth, and quiet arrival and we were alongside by 0200 in the morning sandwiched between two very nice, very expensive and very capable ocean-going yachts….. lots of boat envy but that can wait. First, some well-earned sleep.

A lie in until 0800 and then a quick recce of the local ‘not so greasy spoon’ before passport control in the harbour office and beg/steal/borrow the keys to the local sailing club for a hot shower.

Back on board and reality bites with a blocked bog (Heads -in nautical term). At home you’d probably have half a go at clearing it yourself and then call the plumber; on board, it’s all on us. A quick change of clothes and then Kev and Cormac are into the thick of it. Two hours later we have a growing pile of unmentionable ‘residue’ and mercifully a functioning heads again who knew there was such a thing as a toilet snake! Just to keep everyone else busy we also had a water tank leak to fix (using both Harry von black maskers tape AND WD 40) and a Worcester sauce explosion to deal with. Does anyone know what actually goes into Worcester sauce? Not sure what was more corrosive, the caustic soda that went down the heads or the pint of Worcester sauce sloshing around in the food locker!

Jobs done we cleaned up and headed out to explore a bit of the island. First target the museum in Scalloway where the legendary feats of the WWII SOE operatives are commemorated. The ‘Shetland Bus’ consisted of a series of fishing boats and extraordinary crews that covertly inserted British and Norwegian agents into Nazi occupied Norway across the same stretch of water we had just fought our way across, but they had the added challenge of German planes and ships actively trying to sink them. Somewhat humbled we continued on to the lighthouse at the very tip of the Shetlands and some close up encounters with several hundred puffins and what must be the worlds largest fog horn. After dropping Kev at the airport we continued my obsession with visiting film sets from the Shetland TV series, ticking off the beautiful St Ninians beach and ‘DCI Perez’s beach house’.

Before returning home for a glorious fish and chip supper on board we still had enough time to help stop a French catamaran from crashing into the harbour wall and get up close and personal with some Shetland ponies…. In fact, Charley was so taken with the ponies she failed to see the electric fence that zapped her onto her back and sent everyone else to their knees laughing.