Steady at harbour
THE FIRST week of the new year has been steady at Lerwick Harbour.
The first reefer of 2009, the 98-metre Norwegian Silver Ocean, finished loading frozen fish on Wednesday and sailed to Klaipeda in the Baltic states. A larger reefer, the 110-metre Green Explorer, arrived at the Greenhead base on Tuesday.
The same day the Russian general cargo boat Sheksna came to the base carrying cargo for the Orelia, a diving support vessel working on the Don oilfield, a regular visitor which also came to the base on Tuesday.
Making her second appearance after an absence of several years was the Singapore-registered supply boat Boa Fortune which came to Lerwick on Hogmanay. The seismic boat Sea Profiler came in for shelter on the same day. She sailed for the Murchison field in the east Shetland basin on Tuesday.
The highlight of Wednesday was a first visit by the 121-metre Norwegian diving support vessel Skandi Seven, which was a notable presence at Holmsgarth. She was in for fuel and a crew change, and sailed at midnight the same night, although she is coming back next week.
The pelagic boat Resolute landed the first catch of mackerel of the year of Sunday, followed on Monday by the Fraserburgh-registered boats Christina S, Enterprise, Forever Grateful and the Shetland boat Zephyr. The Clare is currently in dry dock in Denmark but is due back next week.
