Safe Return Doubtful

I spent five days on Fetlar in the end, the van not moving from its wonderful setting just above he beach, and in that time probably met most of the islanders. Each day I wandered past the cafe, which acts as a shop, post office, and information centre also, and sat inside for a coffee and a chat with whoever was around. The owners are typical of islanders, from the south of England, in their late fifties, and taken to Fetlar as an escape from the noise, pollution and lack of space in England. Only five of the sixty seven residents are from Shetland since birth. The English have brought with them a high level of organisation. Despite the remoteness of their residences things happen efficiently; the food deliveries to the shop from the mainland, the postal service, the regular meetings at the community hall. The arrival of strangers, or rather tourists, is noticed by all. It’s not possible to creep in undetected.

The island is well-supported in terms of infrastructure, probably too much so. For its regular postal service, the island has its own red Royal Mail electric van, which four islanders work in shifts with deliveries, and get paid to do so. The ferry, which is free for island residents, calls at least four times a day, which seems quite unnecessary, as most times when I was there it was empty, but the crew come for their lunch at the cafe. Garbage is collected by a truck that comes from the mainland once each week. A mobile library, hairdresser, and various other services call in for a few hours fortnightly. A doctor or nurse will visit when requested, and a dentist calls in monthly.

In that sense, it’s not as remote as other mainland communities.

Though I knew nobody by name, everyone knew me, the guy with the red dog and the porthole van on the beach.

Though the first days I was there were fine, the second half of my stay on Fetlar the weather turned wild. There were occasional showers, but the wind howled and came from the north. Rather than gusty, it was a steady thirty five mile per hour gale, and as it was from the north it took the temperatures down to single figures, with an added chill factor. These are the most unwelcome conditions for outdoor activity, and even indoor activity is with an unsettling rocking and a constant reverberation.

On the windy days Roja and I headed out in the morning as usual, but no further than the couple of miles to the cafe and back, then settled into an afternoon of reading, podcasts, and even completing the VAT return for work..

A few locals walked their dogs on the beach, and over the days Roja got to know them all. There weren’t many visitors, but two young women came over to say hello one afternoon, sheltering from the wind behind my van. They were students from UCL, a woman of Sudanese descent, and a Nepalese lady. The former was a geography student hoping to be a lecturer, hence the reason for the visit. They were on Shetland for two weeks, and were tough enough not to even mention the weather.

We were one of just two vehicles on the 3:30 pm ferry to Unst earlier today, the wind had at long last dropped, and the sun broke through. I drove to Baltasound, Unst’s equivalent of a metropolis, and stocked up on water, and from the supermarket. At the leisure centre I paid £1.50 for my weekly shave and shower, and the guy told me, at 5 pm, the showers would need to run a bit as I was the first person in today. Unst has as many visitors in Fest week (last week), a few hundred, as it does in the other 9 weeks of summer put together.

I drove to Uyeasound to park-up, at the far south west of the island. I had hoped to visit here, but it had quite a few people around the marina last week, so I had postponed it. From that howling three day northerly wind to a completely calm night – it was appreciated.