Not a great photo, is it? It needs some explanation. It was taken with a big zoom lens from the island of North Ronaldsay at the very northern tip of the Orkney Islands last summer, after Heather and I had spent several weeks kayaking there from the Scottish mainland. The hazy outline in the photo is Fair Isle, 25 miles away and further north again. Fair Isle is the southernmost of the Shetland Isles; these are basically the last bit of Britain before you hit the Arctic Ocean! The Shetland Isles are an archipelago extending north to latitudes on a par with central Norway. The most northerly point is the celebrated lighthouse at Muckle Flugga, which is of course the northernmost tip of Britain. Muckle Flugga is precisely 711 miles north of our house; and hopefully we’ll be up there ourselves, very shortly! We head north tomorrow night, catching the overnight ferry from Aberdeen on Saturday evening.
South West Sea Kayaking Meet 2010 – this is filling up nicely, but there is still plenty of space at the moment. Details are here. If you post payment to me, make sure that you also email me (because I’ll be 711 miles from home) to help me keep track of numbers. Those of you who have signedup; more info about the event to follow, of course…
Hopefully my next blog post will have some rather better photos of the Shetland Isles…
Have a great trip, we look forward to seeing your photos!
Such an amazing part of the world, been to the orkney islands a couple of times on surf trips, best place to find un crowded seas!