Of course travelling up to Shetland at (relatively) short notice means that, unless I want to sell a kidney or some other vital organ, I'm travelling by boat. 12 or so lovely hours sailing across the North Sea putting up with lukewarm, overly expensive food and whatever weather the North Sea wants to throw at us. There is a good bar on the boat though, as well as selling the beers from the Valhalla Brewrey on Unst it has Dark Island on tap. A perfect beer to chew on for a couple of hours.
Now, for those of you not in the know, Shetland has a decent tourist trade and a fair selection of these tourists will travel up on these bus tours things. Now, I've never had the pleasure of reading any of these brochures advertising such bus tours but I can only imagine they describe the ferry crossing as -
"a leisurely evening sail up the east coast of Scotland to the Shetland Islands"
Ok so, on a nice evening I guess it can be called a leisurely sail. They don't mention what it's like in a Force 8 gale. When the weather gets like that, the best route to survival is to lie still and try not to move around too much. I do remember once, being unable to sleep one morning after a particularly rough night, going for a wander at about 6am to find a rather green looking bus tour sitting with their bags looking not unlike a group of people who are about to be evacuated from a warzone.
Also, on the boat you get a flashback to primary school. Remember when some poor kid would chunder over the floor, and the Jannie would appear and throw some sawdust on it? Yep, that's what happens!
One of the main reasons for me heading up that way was to attend Big Ro's birthday bash, which so happened to be the most Northerly Birthday Party in the UK. The following morning, I may or may not have had the most northerly hangover in the UK the following morning. I also set a personal record of making 6 trips on the Vomit Comet. A colleague did suggest it wasn't called "Punch" for nothing...
