{"id":6340,"date":"2009-07-29T14:06:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-29T19:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/?p=6340"},"modified":"2009-07-31T13:53:02","modified_gmt":"2009-07-31T18:53:02","slug":"lerwick-shetland-islands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/lerwick-shetland-islands\/","title":{"rendered":"Lerwick, Shetland Islands"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/lewerick-shetland-islands-207.jpg\" alt=\"Lewerick-Shetland-Islands-207\" width=\"576\" height=\"384\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The sun is shining (doesn&#8217;t it always in the U.K?) and there is a large raft of cruisers (big and small) in Lerwick, the capital of the Shetland Islands. Dockage for yachts is at a premium and this time of year rafting is the norm.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/lewerick-shetland-islands-202.jpg\" alt=\"Lewerick-Shetland-Islands-202\" width=\"576\" height=\"384\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve moved to a floating dock, much more pleasant than the commercial pier to which we were previously affixed.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/shetland-islands-271.jpg\" alt=\"Shetland-Islands-271\" width=\"300\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This is Lesley, one of the many friendly Shetlanders we&#8217;ve been meeting. They all have a smile and pleasant greeting when passing on the street, or a driver to driver wave. And they do make their visitors welcome.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/shetland-islands-211.jpg\" alt=\"Shetland-Islands-211\" width=\"576\" height=\"384\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Lesley took us for a drive around the local island. High on our priority list was a photo of a real Shetland pony, to go with the polar bear photos from earlier this summer. Just to prove these are real, not mythical, Linda is feeding mom here.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/shetland-islands-238.jpg\" alt=\"Shetland-Islands-238\" width=\"576\" height=\"251\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The landscape is lovely to contemplate on a sunny, windless day.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/shetland-islands-200.jpg\" alt=\"Shetland-Islands-200\" width=\"383\" height=\"576\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There are the requisite ruined castles. The original owner of this edifice lost his head over some political issues.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/shetland-islands-254.jpg\" alt=\"Shetland-Islands-254\" width=\"576\" height=\"384\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Peat is still cut from the bogs and used for heating by some of the locals. It is first stacked on end, and then turned horizontal for drying.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/shetland-islands-262.jpg\" alt=\"Shetland-Islands-262\" width=\"576\" height=\"384\" \/><\/p>\n<p>With decent light a photographer could have a jolly time here.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/shetland-islands-266.jpg\" alt=\"Shetland-Islands-266\" width=\"576\" height=\"384\" \/><\/p>\n<p>One of the problems that all small communities have is keeping the younger generations interested in the enchantment of scenes like this. The adventure of the big city is always a lure, and sometimes the youngsters need to go off island to gain an appreciation of what they have at home.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/lewerick-shetland-islands-215.jpg\" alt=\"Lewerick-Shetland-Islands-215\" width=\"576\" height=\"384\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The waterfront of Lerwick has a number of these stone buildings, now homes. We are told that prior occupants were smugglers, evading the King&#8217;s taxman.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/lewerick-shetland-islands-233.jpg\" alt=\"Lewerick-Shetland-Islands-233\" width=\"384\" height=\"576\" \/><\/p>\n<p>There are new developments, of course, but we like these older areas.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/shetland-islands-263.jpg\" alt=\"Shetland-Islands-263\" width=\"576\" height=\"384\" \/><\/p>\n<p>A Scottish, or perhaps we should say Shetland thistle.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/shetland-islands-245.jpg\" alt=\"Shetland-Islands-245\" width=\"300\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ll close with a series of interesting signs.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/lewerick-shetland-islands-227.jpg\" alt=\"Lewerick-Shetland-Islands-227\" width=\"300\" height=\"235\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/lewerick-shetland-islands-228.jpg\" alt=\"Lewerick-Shetland-Islands-228\" width=\"300\" height=\"244\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/lewerick-shetland-islands-236.jpg\" alt=\"Lewerick-Shetland-Islands-236\" width=\"300\" height=\"157\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The sun is shining (doesn&#8217;t it always in the U.K?) and there is a large raft of cruisers (big and <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/setsail.com\/lerwick-shetland-islands\/\">&#8230;Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dashew-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6340"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setsail.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}