16 Jun 2013

Sunday 16 June 2013 – Scalloway to Papa Stour

Departing just after breakfast we just had time to avoid foul tide up the coast, so headed north for Papa Stour.  After fine weather we soon ran into mist banks, with visibility of about 1/2 mile. Spotted a couple of small fishing boats with the radar.  At Papa Stour we entered Hamna Voe which is the most sheltered of several voes on the island and also the nearest.  The entrance is quite narrow and the bottom invisible on the way in as it’s weed or mud.  There are loads of places called Hamna Voe – it means Harbour Inlet and in this case it provided a very sheltered and totally quiet anchorage, with the only things visible being a few sheep, ruined buildings and a coloured marker for the airstrip.

Explored the spectacular W coast of the island, which has been worn into huge caves, geos and gloups.  It would be spectacular with a big swell coming in.

Follow the track of this day
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Scalloway Boat Club pontoon, town behind

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Just passed this bit of coast!

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Ruined vertical axis water mill, with stones still in place.
The mill wheel used to be under the floor. Such mills were in use from Norse
times until early in the 20th century

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2 ruined small water mills on the same stream.
We saw several others on this small island

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Rock arch on the W coast. The cave continued under my feet
and well into the cliff and included a “gloup” or blowhole.

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Another huge geo and cave, Pam standing on top

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Fulmars

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These cliffs were originally composed of volcanic ash,
which contains lots of interesting stones and patterns

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The big caves are not accessible on foot
so we had to make do with this rock arch

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Dunlin, which seemed quite tame

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