Shetland Sea Caves

After our visit to those stunning Neolithic sites on Orkney we continued sailing northwards to Shetland, stopping first at the small island of Foula, said to be the most remote populated island in Britain, with less than 30 people.  And a tenuous link to the main islands because of challenging weather that routinely delays both flights and ferries, sometimes for weeks.

At least some of the wildflowers were familiar to me, like this Marsh Marigold.

Others were just pretty little pink things!

This is definitely a place of Shetland ponies, and they roam freely over the island.

We had time to walk up from the tiny harbour, here to examine the local boat graveyard.

But one of the other highlights of the trip came later, when we anchored off Papa Stour and went to explore the sea caves, stacks and geos.

It was incredible motoring through the caves and coming to spots where the ceiling had caved in, leaving it open to the sky - a feature known as a geo.

It was dark in the caves but quite light in the geos; getting the correct camera setting was mostly impossible, but it was certainly exciting.

On this excursion the swell of the ocean meant that the loading platform was alternately 3 feet above then 3 feet below water level.  You had to time your leap in either direction just right!  In any case Mrs. F.G. came back so excited that she stood there telling me that "We should go to Antarctica next!"