Shetland Symposium Tuesday, July 04, 2006

We've enjoyed mostly lovely weather for the Shetland sympoisum - which I forgot to mention that we kayaked right to the door of.... It's a beautiful place, 'bigger islands than Orkney, with more hills and moorland. If you like caves and sea stacks then Shetland is the place for you. I was lucky enough to be mostly asigned to day trips during the sympoisum and Alun and I enjoyed a day paddle around Muckle Roe, which is a lovely granite island about 15km around, with stunning red caves and passages through rocks. It's always a delight to poke your bow into a dark cave and creep forwards carefully until you see a gleam of light shining a hundred metres away. You have found a way through!! The swell was pretty big on this day so I'm told we couldn't get into 'the best caves', but I was very satisfied with what we did manage to explore. I think we'd still be there if we had been able to get into every cave.

Yesterday we paddled around the small island of Noss which has some of the best 'bird cliffs' in Shetland ( except for the island Foula which we hope to visit also). I think the cliffs are about 180metres high and there is a large gannet colony, and a few other stow-aways in amongst the gannets. Guillemots, razor bills, puffins and fulmars also made their nests there. We enjoyed fantasic views and sounds over lunch as we landed at some almost horizontal ledges underneath the towering colony. A few people found themselves a bit too much 'underneath' some of the flying birds, and the sea was used to clean affected clothes and hair.

We might be going to Faroe tomorrow - a bit of an earlier departure than planned because of a minimal ferry schedule to get us back from Shetland to Orkney. If so, we hope to paddle a day or 2 more in Shetland after Faroe, and before returning home. I will keep trying to add photos! Happy paddling!