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.