puffinbillyunst - December 2005

The Unst islandblog is in danger of turning into a virtual staffroom. Hi Les. Hi Ruth. Hello anyone else at Baltasound Junior High School or, indeed anyone on Unst who is reading this.

It has, indeed, as mentioned by others, been unusually calm over the last few days, as the photo shows. Several virtual browniepoints to anyone who can name the Cocteau Twins album with a track which inspired the title for the photo.

The only problem with lazy calm days up here at this time of the year is that there is no time to go out and enjoy them. School starts at 9:20, which is about the same time as sunrise and finishes at 3:30 or 3:45 depending on whether you are in primary or secondary, and that is after sunset.

Still our class topic is space and the clear (ish) nights have meant the delights of showing P6/7 that the bright 'star' in the sunset is a crescentic planet named Venus when looked at through the telescope. A disappointing absence of the 'Merrie Dancers' at the moment though - or the Northern Lights as they are more commonly known.

With all three Unst bloggers and a hybrid Orcadian-Unst logger present, there is a danger of being repetitive here, but as ruthodanort has already reported, it was bouncy castle time for Maggi's 51st birthday party. It's called regression I believe. It was followed by jelly'n'ice cream and a game of hide the banana - not quite as much fun as it's more famous cousin perhaps, but amusing nonetheless. You sit in a circle and pass a banana behind your back while someone in the middle has to guess where it ends up. Sounds easy, but suffice to say, no-one guessed right.

Outside, meanwhile, and true to predictions, the beautiful lazy calm was replaced by gloom and rain. It was a lights-on-all-day sort of day.

One disadvantage of an island is access to services. Unst used to have a dentist in the RAF (now there's another story) and then there was a dentist in Yell, the next island, but she's left, so now it's a two ferry journey to Mainland and to Lerwick for emergency treatment.

Could be worse. When I was on North Ronaldsay we got a visit from the Royal Army Dental Corps giving free dental treatment to anyone while trying to prove that they could work in 'difficult field conditions' (but that's another story - if anyone asks I'll tell it as the arrival was quite amusing).

Three visits to the dentist to try and rebuild my decrepit teeth have given me an opportunity to look for a vagrant in Lerwick. No, not a tramp, a rare bird which shouldn't really be here. A steady stream of birders have been heading north on the Northlink ferries to see a Brunnich's Guillemot from the Arctic which seems to think it's the Leirna, the Bressay ferry, as it spends the last two weeks commuting from Lerwick to Bressay by swimming across Lerwick harbour.

There was only one birder up on the boat today and we waited on the Lerwick side from dawn but with no luck. While I went to the dentist, he went over on the ferry and saw the bird well on Bressay before it drifted north and out of sight. Still I saw one at Sumburgh Head in 1989. Consolation prize was a late Pomarine Skua heading north through the harbour. Consolation picture is this Tystie (Shetland name for a Black Guillemot, but that's yet another story), having a look before diving.

I spent about a year on North Ronaldsay from spring 1987 to spring 1988. For those who don't know, North Ronaldsay is the northernmost of the Orkney islands, just 40 km from Fair Isle in Shetland, but it is very flat and Orcadian in character.

With no ro-ro (still) and transport links all via Kirkwall North Ron can claim to be Orkney's remotest inhabited island. This was presumably behind the decision by the Royal Army Dental Corps to come and set up a Field Dental Unit on the island in 1987, offering free dental services to the islanders. The RADC complained that although they set up their field surgery every time the army went on manouevres, no-one ever got toothache (how inconsiderate!) so they never got the chance to prove their worth.

To save costs they hitched a lift with a Fisheries Protection Vessel, although given the rivalry between Army and Navy this wasn't necessarily a good idea. Problem is the Navy couldn't find the pier!! They sailed right round the island and were beginning their second circuit while everyone stood on the pier waving. In the end, some of the islanders got in a small boat with an outboard and started chasing after the Navy, one guy steering, the other frantically waving his arms to try and attract their attention. Eventually, someone noticed and the ship turned round and headed to the pier.

To get ashore required flit boats as there is not enough clearance for the ship to get in by the pier. The first flit boat came in, carrying the Army officers, with a couple of naval bodies escorting them across.

"Just wait until I'm ashore. You army boys won't be able to do this properly," shouted the sailor at the front with the rope. He promptly made a leap for the steps, missed and disappeared up to his neck in the sea.

The rest of the disembarking was completed in near silence and as quickly as possible, while the army smirked openly and the sailors glared at their shoes in embarrassment.