Across the North Sea!

We boarded the Northlink ferry Hjatland in the mid afternoon.

Getting Nell tucked into a ferry's vehicle berth-- where you're nudging cars as close together as possible -- was an exercise in hilarity. Her various bells, whistles and chimes reminded us of walking the arcade at a carnival or state fair, with the bing-bonging of games of chance whirling all around us.

Once we had her parked, we headed up to the top deck since the weather was so nice.  The views of Aberdeen from the wharf confirmed what we'd begun to suspect on our drive through the city--it's aggressively grey.  The granite with which much of the city is built is flecked with Micah, which means that up close, it sparkles in the (rare) sunlight (which is where it gets the nickname "the Silver City by the Sea."  From a distance, however, that sparkle is lost, and the city's granite, stretching from horizon to horizon, gives you the sense that the place has rejected the very idea of color.  It's quite striking, and on a sunny day with blue water beneath us and a blue sky above, it was a beautiful city to depart.

We headed out of the harbour accompanied by dolphins leaping in the water -- an exciting sign of good fortune ahead! We later learned that Aberdeen harbour is a rich feeding ground for bottlenose.  A pity I'm not a better wildlife photographer, or I'd have gotten a brilliant picture of them frolicking in the water alongside the Hjatland.

Aberdeen is city with an economy based around energy -- I believe the boat in the foreground services oil rigs, and in the background you can see a massive ocean-based wind farm.

The ferry would stop in Orkney around 23:00 on the way to Lerwick, Shetland, depositing us on the small Scottish island in the middle of the North Sea around 7:00 in the morning.

Since we'd pivoted to Shetland with only a couple of weeks to spare (after realizing Islay would be less-fun with no available distillery tours) we didn't secure a cabin for the trip up, but instead for just a handful of pounds we did snag two "sleeping pods", which turned out to be absolutely delightful contraptions (which I'm sad I forgot to take my own picture of.)

We settled into our pods and started a movie - I had had the forethought to download Kiki's Delivery Service (long on my to-watch list) before we left Glencoe, so we settled into our pods with a couple of beers and watched the first half before heading out to the restaurant to grab dinner. 

Good Beer, comfy seats, and Miyazaki, an excellent combination.

It turned out the Northlink ferry company takes dinner quite seriously and--with glass-calm seas facilitating healthy appetites--we feasted on Haggis-stuffed chicken and a "Beef pie" (deconstructed for practicality into [beef stew] + [giant pastry hat]).

"Pie!" (delicious)

We were delighted to see more evidence of the pride the Scots take in the proximity of their food sources. Alongside indicating things like vegan and gluten free options, the menu also indicated the origin of the ingredients in the various dishes served on board.

 

After dinner we popped up to the top deck to see the sunset, and then finished Kiki's, nestled into our pods as best we could and slept until midnight.

At midnight we tried to go and see the Northern lights, as we had hopes it might be dark enough on the top deck in the open ocean to get a good view and my friends at much more southern latitudes had incredible luck on Friday night. This turned out to be impossible, for safety reasons they close the top deck once it gets proper dark, and the sun barely really sets at all at a Northern latitude of 60 degrees at this time of year, so we found ourselves blearily staring at a too-bright sky from a lower deck balcony that was choked with cigarette smoke.

I did get a pretty good shot of the Orkney coastline though.

 Ah well, back to the pods, and sleep!