Downtown Lerwick as seen from the TV / by bow camera in the cabin. We were anchored nicely close.

Yesterday afternoon it did not look really good for Lerwick but it would all depend how much lee there would be at the anchorage.  And it turned out that the wind was from the South South West and Lerwick has a nice hill in that direction to provide good shelter.  And it turned out to be the case. The captain anchored the Nieuw Statendam nicely close to the shore and with wind was at sea level about 16 knots, making for happy tender drivers. It was also only a 5 minute tender drive from shore and that helped as well.

Marine Forecast for Lerwick. As soon as windspeeds in red are popping up, a captain starts to worry about tender service.

Lerwick is blessed with one of the best tender docks on the British Coast and can handle 3 tenders at the same time. Two ashore, two at the ship and in between and the tender service was perfect. The port was dominated by the ms S.H Diana alongside. Which is only a small ship of 12,000 tons and 125 guests but as she is only  125 meters long, she fitted alongside the pier with the bow lines tied up to a mooring buoy. S.H stands for Swan Hellenic and Diana comes from Crown Princess Diana of the UK.  This is an upscale expedition ship with very high quality lecturers and while most cruise ships will do a show in the evening, S.H will do another lecture. So they have a very dedicated following with a high repeater rate.

The tender dock in Lerwick. Even considering that the S.H Diana is only very small cruise ship it still loomed over the marina.  Two tenders could easily be accommodated here, resulting in very short waiting times.

We made it ashore by 11.00 and were greeted by a long line of returning guests who had already done the walk up and done the High Street and were now dreaming about hot coffee and cakes. We were on a mission again has Her Ladyship now needed a scrubbing sponge for her shower. Lerwick has both a Boots and a Super Drugs so a price comparison needed to be carried out and in the end Super Drug won the contest beating Boots. In the mean time I was drawn to Harry’s Department Store, 3 floors high, 2 shop fronts wide and 30 meters deep, full of general merchandise. I collect in my non shipping movement Britains Farm models (size 1.32) which is the highest quality farm models out there and they had a lot of them and quite a few for sale. But Alas………… no more room left in the suitcases, so I had to let it go by.

Lerwick Main Street. It was raining off and on till about 13.00 hrs, when the sun came out.

Lerwick was founded long, long time ago by Norse people normally described as Vikings, but that is not the full truth of their history. But still they feel more Scandinavian than Scottish but definitely more Scottish than British /English. It has a shop with kilts and other Scottish souvenir stuff but everywhere traces of a Norse heritage come peaking around the corner.

It is 229 miles from Lerwick to Bergen in Norway and 768 miles from Lerwick to London, so it gives you an idea about where the focus lays. We have been to Lerwick many a times, so we have visited the local Fort (built by King Charles II) against the Dutch. They held the Dutch off during their first attack (2nd Anglo-Dutch war) but they burnt the place down the next time (3rd Anglo-Saxon war). That was in 1673 and since then it has been silent here.  So I wonder what the locals thought of today’s Dutch invasion as more than 50% of our guests on board are Dutch. For the rest of the area you have to use tours and many of our guests did. Most of the tours are half day, so at 12.15 many buses deposited their contents at the dockside, but with two tenders being able to do at the same time, the waiting times were very short.

Although Lerwick is quite a large village, tourists, unless on tours, normally do not stray from the Highstreet where the more touristy shops are located. But it also has three national banks for normal life. Outside the village there is a shopping center as well.

We had done all our sightseeing tours in the past, and settled for a cup of coffee in a local coffeeshop as all the returning tours arrived on the pier at that time, must have been a few hundred guests. But thanks to the excellent tender pier, two tenders could be loaded at the same time and the line was gone very quickly.

Back on board we had made a booking for the Tamarind at 19.00 hrs. and thus went for early cocktails. On the daily program it said the Classical Trio would be playing in the Ocean Bar, but only the violin lady was there (The full trio only showed up for the 2nd set) As the only venue with live music at that time, it was way too small, but half the people having pre dinner drinks and the other half sitting there waiting for the Sel de Mer to open. So we went to the Billboard and waited until the Duelling Pianos had their first session  an hour later. Good excuse to have 2 cocktails.  As usual the Tamarind was very good. The menu is varied enough to have 4 nights there, so we might book another one, if our “As You Wish” tomorrow night turns out to be not that good again. A dinner in the Tamarind takes about 2+ hours so you have to forget about a show or anything else. But is worth it. The Indonesian Waitresses have been replaced by Philipina Ladies but the smiles are the same.

Tomorrow we are in Stornoway on the island of Lewis and Harris in the Western Island also called the Outer Hebrides. Weather is supposed to be windstill and sunny….. And that for Scotland ?????..

A nice view of the ms Nieuw Statendam at anchor. Please note the Viking Longboat to the left in the picture. On occasion the locals still like to go back to their roots.