shetland ~ a boat and other things

hello! thank you for your kindness and interest in these shetland posts. i think it's important to keep a record, but mostly i think it's important to share. if it were to help another in trip planning, that would be the best thing! and if it were to bring a bit of 'armchair travel' love to someone, that would be excellent too! this post is mostly about the boat trip we took while in shetland, but first a few more things that we saw and did...

...and wore! here are our 'bressay's!

and here we are with the darling talented designer of bressay, and one of the shetland trip leaders, gudrun johnston. nicole on the far left (coco knits) has made the dress. kathryn (north road purl) is still working on her's, but was persuaded to put it on for the photo. gudrun is in the middle, then me, and on the far right in her version of a bressay tunic is claire dupont (bouillesdecoton). if you would like to make this, the pattern can be found here: bressay
 i love them all! well done everyone!

swimming in the voe of vaila

seen around burrastow house

a pair of newly weds came for their photos

here we are touring the woollen mill of laurence odie (in hoswick). here i've fallen apart in blogging, so many photos to go through, and i've mixed things up. but, nevermind, i thought you might like to see these anyway, out of order as they are...

we did visit the jamieson mill, shetlands only commercial mill, hopefully i'll be able to find those photos to share as well. but today we are at laurence odie, a beautiful mill and shop with one of the most fantastic things i've ever seen a machine do! see the large green machine this young man is working at? he is feeding shetland sweaters (machine knit) through the roller, they would go in flat (ish) and come out fluffed up....

our guide retrieved from a box under the green machine a spiky looking dried plant. he told us (oh but it was not easy to understand everything said) it was a teasel

and look! dozens of them! when one wears out a new one replaces it (from the cardboard box below). incredible! amazing! 

this was the jumper stretcher steamer puller outer thing. this man would slip a sweater half the size on to this contraption and with carefully executed moves, would work his magic and voila! and perfectly shaped steamed and blocked garment. 

jumping around again (please forgive me, these posts have really thrown me. between computer issues, photo issues, too many cameras taken on the trip issues, eek) so here we are at the bod of gremista and shetland textile working museum. built in 1780, this is the only bod in shetland which has been renovated to its historical state.

maryjane and gudrun having a chat with one of the dedicated volunteers

displays include knitted shetland textiles from the 19th century to the present day (stunning)

wonderful examples of shetland knitting

there is a room for hands on activities. here is beautiful nicole spinning on a beautiful wheel

being here in this 18th century fishing bod (house) in gremista, lerwick was an experience i'll never forget

i think we all did a little of this at the end of each incredibly full day. a little time to reflect at the wonder of it all. 

~ on the boat ~ 

seen in lerwick

now we are all (almost all of us) going on an adventure cruise! we are going to bressay (yes! like the dress) and noss. noss is a national nature reserve with famous seabird cliffs, SO so exciting!

after our orientation, we headed out

we are on the dunter 3

our first sighting! a grey seal

many grey seals!

the first mate threw them a few fishes so we had quite a show!

at one point we made a stop for coffee and biscuits! it was cold and a bit rainy out

so this was a lovely treat!

soon we arrived at noss, where puffins were nesting!

we all ran outside (inside the saloon was heated and cozy) into the rain to better see. maryjane, claire and i climbed onto the top deck for a better look. i like this photo only because it included the shetland flag! oh and hey! my shwook hat!

here is a handy table map inside the boat

kathryn is enjoying a ginger biscuit from our crew member

a handy bird list 

meanwhile, outside...

there they are!! see the two puffin?!

the boat could not get any closer and we were moving around alot, so photos were difficult. but on these rocky cliffs were many many puffins!

and black guillemots

and one of the most incredible nature spectacles i've ever ever seen. on these sandstone cliffs up to 592 feet high (181 m) are a honeycomb of nesting ledges, and around 20,000 gannets

incredible

the sight and sounds of these migrating seabirds was astounding. we stood out in the misty rain, trying to capture some of the magic, whilst also trying to keep our cameras safe. and being completely awed.

here you can see the chicks, gannets nest just far enough apart from each other to avoid being poked by their neighbors sharp beak

i was especially moved because chuck and i made a trip to see the gannets, off the coast of south africa, in lambert's bay. these are the same birds. can you imagine their journey? 

linnea and liz keeping dry (and isn't linnea's valenzi cardi gorgeous!)

kittiwake

we watched the kittiwakes fishing, right off the stern of our boat!

maryjane and gundruns dad

bressay lighthouse

one of the stevenson's lighthouses!

back to lerwick

thank you very much crew and gudrun's dad and the dunter 3! 

and back at 'home', while the memory is still fresh, putting pen to paper. i think one more post will finally be it and i will have shared all there is to share with this one. i have another (much smaller) but very exciting adventure coming up soon!
thank you for reading, xxx lori