Cruise ship Polar Star calls twice in a week

It was a busy week for the harbour with more than 20 yachts and a fair amount of work boats, fish carriers and taankers calling.

Last Wednesday the first of the week’s cruise liners arrived with the Liberian Expedition and the Polar Star, from Barbados. Also in that day was the Norwegian live fish carrier Gripfisk, which called in at the spur jetty en route to Ullapool.

Another regular visitor, live fish carrier the Ronja Settler, arrived on Thursday while transporting salmon from Yell to Scalloway.

Norwegian cargo ship the Fame called in at Holsmgarth before leaving for Ayr with a shipment of salmon feed, as did the Norwegian supply ship Siem Supplier which travelled on to Peterhead.

Friday was a quiet day, with one supply vessel, the Up Esmerelda and one tug, the Husky, which had been working on decommissioning at the North West Hutton field. Both ships are from Panama. The British work boat the Shjandur also made a brief stop before sailing on to Vidlin.

The Silver Copenhagen was the sole arrival at Gremista on Saturday. The Norwegian reefer arrived from Eemshaven in the Netherlands with a cargo of frozen fish en route to St Petersburg.

However there were five yachts in taking advantage of the sunshine: the Norwegian Dina Fra Os, If and Nora arrived at Victoria Pier while the Polish Barlovento II and the British White Spirit (19) arrived from Fair Isle.

On Sunday the Polar Star was back for a second time before taking her passengers to Bergen. The sail training ship Statsraad Lehmkuhl also arrived. The 99ft vessel made a brief stop before returning to Bergen.

A further five yachts arrived, this time all from Norway bar one – the Swiss Ningaloo, which must have had a beautiful day’s sail from Haugesund.

The week was rounded off with another five yachts: two Norwegian vessels and three British, making it 24 yachts in total for the week.