Back in the most northern isles.

It's nice to visit familiar haunts.  No stress as you know what to do and where to go.  Always finding new places actually means doing a lot of work especially if the pilot books don't list where you want to go.  'Anchor in the east of the bay' the book might say.  But I want to anchor in the west to get out of this large wind.  Why can't I anchor in the west, well get in the dinghy with the portable gps and lead-line and find out.  This means dropping the hook in the east where it's poppley and getting wet whilst making sure that there are no rocks in the way.  I digress, Lerwick is a wonderful place and after stuffing myself with a most wonderful Chinese take out, I set about finding someone who could fix my alternator.  Maybe I wasn't clear but everyone kept telling me to go to the marine engineering places.  I knew those from the last trip so I went to Thule Craft and explained.  She got on the phone and called Campbell, who said Shaun was the man, up by the carpet shed near the incinerator.

Out comes the laptop and a map of Lerwick comes up with Shaun of Autolec, off comes the alternator and out comes the bike and off we set to see Shaun. Shaun has a large machine that can do magic with alternators, dynamos, starters, distributor caps, leads, everything you would need to do to machines of the last century and he knew how to use it.  Best of all he could fix it with stuff he had in stock (also from the last century probably).  He also checked my spare alternator too and diagnosed the problem with that.  Now I have loads of electricity to keep the fridge running and cold for the beer.

Walther came to visit.  You can tell it is a German ship, the crest is a give-away, and somehow the courtesy flag is the Union Flag and not the Red Ensign, unless the Treaty of Versailles has made other arrangements?

 

 I left Lerwick at the start of the Boat Clubs annual regatta, sunshine and not much in the way of wind.







Some parts of the waterfront are naturally quite commercial but this is the scene as you exit to the south.



As it was a calmish day I was keen to see if I could find the "Orkneyman's Cave", full of mineral colours and stalactites and accessible by dinghy. There are supposed to be mooring rings in the cliff face as it is steep too around there.  I couldn't see them and it wasn't as calm as I thought it was going to be anyway!  I think I identified the cave you can just see the start of the colouring inside.  It opens up and is rather large once you get in.



A bit further along are the "giant's legs" or something.

 

 Just round the headland with its reef, is Noss Head, home of gannet city. 




There is an even bigger cave here, one into which even Tutak might fit.  Being on the lee side it was also a lot more comfortable.  I managed to get quite close but bottled it when I felt "suck" when one is drawn, against ones will, inexorably into a black hole, nah Blad.