Shetland Islands
Yesterday we arrived in Bergen at noon, which meant that we had plenty of time to gawk at the scenery and take pictures as we cruised through the islands. This morning, we woke up and the ship was anchored in the bay of Lerwick, Scotland, one of the Shetland Islands. This is a barren, hilly, rocky and windswept place. One must really want to live here to live here.
We took a walking tour of the town with a very local guide. Most of the information he provided was the result of questions asked by a member of the tour. Not really chatty, he. The buildings are mostly made of stone, and the town looks a lot like Edinburg in that regard. The streets are mostly stone as well and most of everything is imported. They do grow root veggies, potatoes, beets and the like. The main sources of income are fishing, oil and tourism. Ours was the last cruise ship of the season and some shops were closed until April.
The flower gardens are still largely in bloom and have similar plants to home. There are lots of crocosmia plants, but not Lucifer. These are orange and yellow, shorter and prolific. It seems as if every garden had multiple bunches. Most unusual is that they use hardy fuscias for hedgerows, up to 10’ high. Some have trunks of 4” or more. Clearly, they don’t cut to the ground like we do. But, even as far north as they are, with the marine weather, they seldom get below zero.
The seas turned rougher as the day went on and tomorrow is another anchor day using tenders to get ashore. Today the Captain needed to turn the ship around just to raise the tenders as it was too rough on the windward side.
As we get farther north and the seas get rougher, it becomes harder and harder to connect with the Internet. So, if our blogs seem irregular, it is due to circumstances beyond our control. We will try to transmit at least after each day ashore.
Thursday is an ‘at sea’ day and we will be in our first Iceland port Friday. We will come very to the Arctic Circle and may even cross it. WOO-HOO, bragging rights?
The main page of the blogger dashboard has changed and we are having trouble inserting pictures, or so it seems to us.
Colleen and John
posted by Colleen and John | 12:20 PM
1 Comments:
Yes, your pictures come through as quite large (I have to scroll to see it). When you get back we should talk about making a photo book with your blog entries and pictures. I think it would be a nice way to capture your trip, especially since you've already documented the details. (I'm thinking a photo book like Shutterfly, not a scrapbook.)
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