Busy week for harbour

THIS week has seen an exceptional amount of activity at Lerwick Harbour.

Aside from a great number of pleasure yachts berthing alongside, there have been four cruise ships at anchor.

Tuesday saw two liners, the Albatross and Andrea, anchoring for a short time before carrying on their voyages.

The Vistamar from Italy arrived on Wednesday for a short visit before taking its passengers to Bergen.

The larger Bahamas-registered Delphin Voyager was also at anchor, stopping off on its way to Reykjavik.

Decommissioning work taking place on the North West Hutton platform has also brought in two barges, the H302 and H541, which will be used to transport parts of the rig to Teeside for recycling.

They were towed up the North Sea by the Primus and were towed in to Lerwick harbour on Tuesday with assistance of the harbour tugs.

Other activity in the area included a visit by the fishery protection vessel Hirta, and the arrival of the tanker Hordafor II which docked at Gremista West on Wednesday. It is here to remove fish sludge from the factory, which will be taken back to Norway.

The weekend will see a great number of racing yachts berthed at Albert Dock, when they come in from the Sjøassistanse Bergen to Shetland race.

Other visiting yachts will be moved to the small boat harbour while the racing yachts are in.