2022 Nordic Seas - Day 19 Lerwick, Shetland Islands, Scotland

The Shetland Islands are a subarctic archipelago off the northern coast of Scotland is comprised of around 100 islands, sixteen are inhabited. The total area is 566 sq miles, with a population of 23,000. About 30% of the people live in Lerwick, where we were to dock in the port and take tenders to town.  Lerwick is the main town, port, and capital of the Shetland Islands. 

Human settlement in the islands dates back to the Neolithic (4000-2500 BC) and Bronze (2500-800 BC) Ages. We’d planned a walk that would take us past some local landmarks, and then a three-mile trek along the sea cliffs to The Knab and the Broch of Clickmin. The former is a rising coastal headland that has the remains of a World War I battery. The latter is a well-preserved Broch, a large, round dry-stone Iron Age dwelling. (I hoped to see a pony or two along the way. 

It was a brisk sunny day, so we were surprised when the captain announced that it was too windy to take our ship into the small Lerwick harbor. The winds were 30 knots, or 35 mph, in the open sea. While they were a little less in the harbor, it was still too much. And taking the tenders in was out of the questions.

So the ship turned around and we headed towards our next port. Our visit to Lerwick consisted of a couple photos from the back of the ship, and a chance to see Fair Isle and some of the Orkney Islands as we headed south to mainland Scotland.