Blogging at 22:00 on Monday 8th April from intended overnighting spot N 60.47959°, W 01.33035° / http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:60.47959%2C-01.33035
Fetlar turned out to be pretty awesome. We spent a completely peaceful night and then first thing this morning drove the whole island. We had planned to bike it but the southerlies were so strong that it really was difficult enough just to literally stand upright. In some places the wind was so strong that opening the truck's cab doors ranged between dangerous and (for Emma) impossible.
The island has some beautiful bays and some really rugged and dramatic coastlines. It's mainly agricultural but there are plenty of areas left well alone and the diversity of birdlife betrays this. As well as the purple sandpiper yesterday we saw more full-breeding plumage red-throated divers here than anywhere else so far plus: hen harrier, twite, snipe, golden plover in huge numbers, wheatear, and merlin. We also saw our first swallows (five or six) and sand martin (solitary) of the year. All these were in addition to dozens more species that we've seen / mentioned so far. The island's also known for breeding red-necked phalarope but we're a bit too early for their normal May arrival.
We were pootling about for about three hours in total and in all that time did not see one other person. We saw two farmer-type pickups moving around and one Royal Mail post van on the move but that was literally it. We didn't actually see another soul.
As an aside, seeing the RM post van did sort of give some perspective regarding the cost of a stamp. Of course, the organisation is criminally mismanaged and barefacedly lines the pockets of a self-serving few, but the logistics of getting a letter from the Scilly Isles to here for a quid or so are pretty mind-boggling and - I feel on solid ground suggesting - must cost more than the price of a stamp.
The church and graveyard on the island are worth a look in their own right. Some of the headstones and monuments are truly archaic and there are also many graves of interest besides. There's a commonwealth war grave from WW1 and three graves of Norwegian mariners torpedoed off Shetland in 1940. Additionally, there are also a few headstones that betray a very esoteric religious order.
All in, Fetlar was an extremely enjoyable spontaneous excursion. It's a place we agreed we may one day revisit. Likewise for Unst: we really didn't spend enough time there.
Anyway, a series of ferries saw us back on Mainland Shetland by mid afternoon and all we've really done since that point is traverse to where we are now, on the North Mainland (aka Northmavine), reportedly the most rugged part of the entire archipelago: geology and exposure to the battering Atlantic reportedly being the main protagonists. Passing on to the North Mainland threw up a notable geographical feature. There's a strip of land less than 100m wide that supports the road between the larger landmasses. To the left of the road is the Atlantic Ocean: to the right of the road is the North Sea. Apparently, it used to be the case that fishing boats would be manhandled over this divide in order to access more productive fishing grounds; thereby avoiding the perils of navigating the headland to the North.
We came to the spot we're currently at (pic) as we'd read it was a good place for otters. Emma-the-Impatient defied all odds and invested more than the customary five minutes of interest in something: a lot more, in fact. It was reward indeed, then, when after about two hours of scouring she picked up a really good sighting about a hundred metres away. We were able to watch the animal foraging the inter-tidal rocks and seaweed before it then took to the sea, bobbed around for a while, and then simply vanished from our sight never to reappear. A great result and confirmation that otters are much easier to not see than see.
Post sighting we happened upon a couple of incredibly friendly and welcoming locals (again) who also advised us that it wasn't that uncommon for orcas to visit the inlets we're overlooking. That prompted another rare demonstration of on-task focus, but with a different outcome to the splendid otter sighting.
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