Day 2 Seabirds and Seals

Day 2 Seabirds and Seals

Today started off with us waking up after about 12 hours of sleep.  It was nice to be rested again.  I did have a horrible leg cramp during the night but it finally went away.  We went downstairs for a very nice breakfast of toast, eggs, bacon, sausage, fruit, orange juice and tea. It all tasted great. Then we rested for a while before meeting our taxi at noon to take us into Lerwick, about one or two miles away.  We visiting the Tourist Information Office first thing and found it’s not feasible to take a plane to any of the small islands since there are no villages on them.  That frees up Thursday for us to find a new adventure.  We then visited Spider’s Web and Jamieson’s and left a good bit of money behind, but we left with some nice knitted items and Linda bought yarn.  There are a few more shops for us to visit later.  The city of Lerwick has narrow curvy streets.  As the others were going to lunch, I went another way to make sure I knew where the boat was that we were supposed to get on about 40 minutes later.  As I was walking on the sidewalk, I saw a teenaged boy get hit by a car!!!!  The sound of it was terrible.  After the car passed and then stopped and I went over the help, the boy tried to stand and kept saying “Oh shit, oh shit, my leg, my leg!”  He thought it was broken, but I don’t know. The driver and I put his arms around our shoulders and got him across the street to a bench to sit on.  Another person called an ambulance.  It could have been so much worse, but it was bad enough.  There were enough people helping, so I left and went on to lunch.  Scary!!

We then had lunch at Peerie Shop Café, a very small but nice café.  We had ham/cheese croissant or Panini and then went to the boat for our Seabirds and Seals boat tour.  As we walked back down the sidewalk, I saw the ambulance with the boy – I hope he’s okay. 

The boat crew consisted of the captain, Jonathon Rogers and his wife, Lesley.  They were both very nice, knowledgeable people. He has a PhD (probably in biology) and has had several careers while his wife is a retired teacher.  She was helping today because his other helpers were all busy with other activities today.  He is retiring at the end of this month and selling his business.  I am very glad that we had the chance to have him lead our tour.  He is very passionate about nature and knows all about it.  There were four people there from England and four others from France. 

We first stopped at the area with commercial fishing processing plants and watched the birds and seals that hang out in that area.  They were neat.  Then we went to the island of Noss where millions of birds, I think, live on the cliffs.  Today there were mostly gannets there, some diving for fish and there were other birds (maybe muckle scarf) who were sometimes attacking the gannets to take away their catch of fish.  There were many, many, many birds on those cliffs.  In other times of the year the cliffs would contain puffins, but they have already left for 8 months of life on the open ocean.  I wish we could have seen them. 

On the way to Noss, the captain let me drive the boat!!!!   For a long time!!!  It was harder than I thought it would be.  He said there was a huge swell pushing me to the right and the tide pushing me to the left and a wind pushing from behind.  It was difficult to keep it pointed straight.  Actually, you could not keep it straight, but had to constantly turn the wheel one way or another.  I got to aim for and then go around a headland of one island and then aim for the cliffs of Noss.  He also said today was the calmest day they’ve had this year!!  Didn’t seem really very calm to me but I could tell it was much calmer than yesterday for sure.  They’ve had a rough summer, lots of rain and storms.  We got very lucky with our choice of boating day. 

After he took control back, he turned off the engines (which do not have propellers but giant water hoses!!) and we stayed there quite a while.  He told us all about the life cycle of the gannets – he sure knows a lot about all that kind of thing.  Those birds spend two years of their youth off the coast of Africa before coming back here to live.  Later, he put his yellow submarine with a camera into the water and showed us the kelp forest under the water at the cliffs.  On the cameras on the boat saw the kelp, fish, cold water coral, jellyfish, starfish, and maybe clouds of plankton.  He said this was the first day the water was very clear, the storms had been making the water cloudy.  Actually I didn’t see any of that because by that time I was pretty seasick, in spite of the patch I wore behind my ear.  I tried looking at the camera but between the motion on the camera and the motion on the boat, I just couldn’t watch.  When he cranked back the motor back up, we slowly drifted about looking more closely at the rocks and the blue eyes of the birds.  He also told about historical events that happened on this island – like when the British navy came and impressed me into service during our revolutionary war.  The smell of the diesel while we drifted finally got to me.  In spite of ‘watching the horizon’ I can now say that I have thrown up on a dive boat, a whale boat, and a seabird and seal boat!!!  Once we started moving more quickly, the air cleared and I felt much better.  They did fix up tea and gave us ginger cookies, but I think that did more harm than good for me. 

After we left Noss, Sue got to drive the boat!!!  She also thought the driving was kind of difficult but she found it exciting.  Course, she had another exciting activity that she did three or four times.  She climbed up the ladder to the roof of the boat and watched from there.  The last couple of times she did not have her coat on so she didn’t stay a long time.  I only climbed up there once but it was a good place to take photos from.

The trip was an excellent adventure.  It was definitely colder when we returned but when we began the trip the temperature was probably a very warm 55 degree!!  All three of us enjoyed it immensely.  Linda said she wishes the Whitfield County teachers could come take the boat trip but I don’t think she will write up a grant to pay for it. 

When we returned to dry land, we started looking for somewhere to eat supper.  This town pretty much buttons up at 6:00 because nothing was open but a few small restaurants.  We wandered until we found the Fort Café and had battered fish and either chips (French fries) or mashed potatoes.  We did have some adventure while we were there.  The waitress spilled hot tea on Sue’s back!!  Then as Sue leaned away from me, I saw her purse on the floor behind her seat and reached for it to hand it to her.  She happened to be turning around my way to get her purse and her elbow punched me (HARD!!) in my lip.  Poor pitiful me - Sue beat me up!!   Haha.  No blood and no swelling, so I guess I’ll survive.  She says she feels bad about that, but I’m not totally sure she does.  We all had a really good laugh about it. Anyway, the food was good and the longer we sat there, the tireder we got. 

We walked back to the town center and got a taxi for home.  We are now safely back in our rooms and resting for our next adventure.  We may or may not take a boat ride to Mousa tomorrow, that’s still to be decided.  We could just go back to town and help their economy out tomorrow – we always enjoy that.  I’ll let you know what happens tomorrow night.

Day 1 Sept 5 and 6 Traveling to Lerwick, Shetland Islands

Day 1 - Saturday, Sept 5 and Sunday, Sept 6, 2015

This is the first entry in the blog for Isles, Kilts, Clans, and Celts trip.  Remember that I do not really proof read each entry since I am usually just too tired to do that.  Instead, you should just read what I meant to say and not what I did say!!  I do know how to use punctuation marks too, but my typing is my weakness.

This trip began as many others have with us getting on the Groom’s shuttle.  Linda got on in Chattanooga and Sue and I got on in Dalton.  Ann was our taxi driver and even though she isn’t with us on this trip, she is still a part of it.  The shuttle was full, but we did have room.  Since our ride was on Saturday of Labor Day weekend, the traffic in and around Atlanta was crowded.  Our driver was really good and calm so he had no problems at all.

 

We three were the last on the shuttle since he had to take us to the International Terminal so that was sort of nice.  Of course, we headed to the restrooms first of all and then got in the line for security check.  The man directing traffic took one look at me and asked if I’d like to go through the short line – I guess he took note of my gray hair and figured he should ask.   I took Linda through the short line with me but Sue had already started on the long line.  Sue got a piece of paper that said she didn’t have to remove her shoes and I was jealous of that.  We made it through security really easily and quickly – I was the only one that had to have a full body scan. 

We then started looking for our gate and we had to get on an underground train to get to our gate – that was new.  The strange thing about it was that the train took us to the old international terminal, just like in the old days!!  The good thing was that our gate was the first one we came to so we were really lucky in that respect. 

We had no excitement and were able to board quickly and easily at 3:45 on the first leg of our journey – Amsterdam.  That plane certainly held a lot of people.  I did try to use some of my Skymiles to upgrade to business class, but they don’t allow that unless you make 30 trips a year!!!  That’s a lot.  I could have upgraded if I had paid $3,000 but needless to say, that didn’t happen. 

I had a nice lady beside me who traveled quite often with a group of 15.  She has traveled all over the world – must be nice.  She has been out of the country 3 or 4 times in the last year. 

None of us slept on that 8 hour journey and we were tired by the end of it.  Linda did ask the pilot of the plane for a cup of coffee.  He was passing by and she was desperate. He did not get her coffee, but I got her a cup – I needed to walk around some anyway.  She enjoyed that cup of coffee.

We landed in Amsterdam as the sun was rising, and walked and walked and walked in that airport.  We had to go downstairs and sure enough, had to walk outside the building and board a bus to take us to the plane.  It took three busloads to fill up the plane.  We were a little late leaving but weren’t too late.  We thought the pilot might drive us on our next leg of the trip because he just kept going and going but never taking off – at least 15 to 20 minutes of navigating runway spaces. 

Finally we took off for Aberdeen.  It seems that everyone was very quiet on this flight – many appeared to be asleep.  I tried but couldn’t sleep on this flight. This only lasted about an hour but we were ready to get off. 

We had to go down the steps of this plane too.  This airport is quite small.  We had to go through immigration here but we never did have to go through customs.  That was neat. 

The immigration officer was very friendly and very talkative.  Of the three of us, I was the only one to get the correct answer on one of the immigration questions – the naming of our departure point.  We all had different answers and all of them could have been correct, depending on your point of view.  However, he agreed with mine.  One point for me.  Probably the only point for me on the trip!!

We tried to check in for our third leg of the journey, but we had to wait an hour and a half, so we were forced to eat a nice Scottish breakfast.  Linda and Sue actually had beans with their breakfast!!  I had sausage.  We were all happy to be out of an airplane seat. 

We checked in and I had had a day long panic attack (a few weeks ago) about luggage sizes for nothing.  She looked at my middle size luggage and put a tag on it in case they decide they need to put it in the hold.  They won’t decide that until I am ready to get on the plane.  I just knew it was going to be way too big or way too heavy and they just would not allow it.  No problem.  And no extra charge.

I was the last of the three to check in so I hurried up to catch up with the other two.  They must have really taken off quickly cause I just could not catch up to them.  I got faster and faster.  Then I got a text from Sue asking where I was cause they were waiting on me!!!!  So I moved to the side of the security line and waited on them.  They had been nice and waited on me but we missed each other some how. 

The security line was fun!  My fella was really helpful but I could tell he got a little exasperated with me because I just kept pulling things out of my pockets and computers/ipads out of my suitcase. He was very helpful but I think he needed a break as I left.  I turned around and saw Linda getting a pat down. A really thorough pat down.  The lady was checking everywhere she could on Linda and just kept going and going.  Linda said that’s the most action she’s had in a while!!  Finally we got through and then waited in the waiting room for our third flight of the day.  All of this traveling is done on Day 1 – it’s just a combination of Saturday and Sunday.  We haven’t slept since we got up early on Saturday morning and now it’s Sunday evening so we are calling it one day.

They did take away our middle sized luggage as we climbed the stairs to the plane.  I was glad I didn’t have to carry it up and down those steps.  We were in row 10 and there were only 12 rows on this plane and 3 seats in each row.  The propellers sure made for a loud trip – just a constant roar.  I wasn’t sure the plane would get to a cruising altitude – it sounded like it needed someone to get out and push.  I actually slept some on this trip.  For a while I kept my fingers in my ears, but eventually gave up on that.  I did wake up a few times when my mouth fell open.  Oh well, the perils of travels.  At least no one could hear me snore over the roar of the plane.  This flight was about an hour and I probably slept about 40 minutes of it.  As we descended toward the Sumbaugh airport on the Shetland Islands the plane began to sway left and right.  It was exciting!!!!!  Scary too.  Evidently we cross the main road on the island and cars have to stop while the plane flies over.  When we were ready to get off the plane, I noticed the clothing on the workers.  They were very protected against the wind and you could see their clothing moving in the wind.  We all put our jackets on and it was a good thing too.  The wind was terrible but the workers said it was just a light breeze today.   I’d hate to see it really blowing.  It gets up to about 90 mph in the winter. 

Our luggage was waiting on us inside and we quickly found our taxi driver with my name on his little board.  He packed all out luggage and I had trouble getting into the car.  I couldn’t keep the car door open long enough to get in.  The wind kept pushing the door again my knee!!!  There are no trees here except one or two in a private garden.  There are lots and lots of sheep.  Many, many sheep. Sue practically fell asleep in the front seat of the taxi, but I was doing pretty good since I had had a little nap on the plane. 

We rode about 20 minutes to Westhall B&B near Lerwick and were surprised to see an American flag waving in the front yard.  Turns out that Julie, our hostess, flew it just for us.  Wasn’t that nice??  The house is beautiful.  There is water on three sides of the house.  It seems there are ocean inlets everywhere and so much beautiful green grass.  We saw heather and thistle on our way here – beautiful. 

Julie fixed us sandwiches (cheese and pickle, ham, and egg), lentil soup, potato chips, cake and fruit for dinner tonight.  She sat down and let us ask questions about all things Shetland. Turns out today is considered a really nice day – up to about 53 degrees and not too windy!  Those are her words, not mine!! She did make the distinction between Scottish and Shetland – evidently that is kind of important.  She explained how this house was built in 1837 for the Sheriff and how it has been redone once or twice in that time.  Some of the floors are the original floors.  The walls are about a foot thick.

 

It’s now 5:23 p.m. on Sunday night, we have had a busy day (or two), and since we’ve had supper, we are preparing to take showers and go to bed.  I think (hope) we will sleep well. 

PS  We did sleep pretty well except for some leg cramps and stomach issues but still got more than 12 hours of sleep.