Hamnavoe

An unusual visitor to Aberdeen Harbour today. Northlink (at the request of the Scottish government) put on an unscheduled visit to Bergen to rescue stranded Brits in Norway.

The Hamnavoe, a smaller sister ship of the Hjaltland and Hrossey (the Orkney and Shetland boats that usually call in Aberdeen), normally plies the route between Scrabster and Stromness.

BBC News article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8636532.stm

With flights to and from Shetland still affected by volcanic ash the the Hrossey was put onto a special shuttle service to and from Shetland doing 10 hours trips. Northbound from Aberdeen - Lerwick by night, southbound Lerwick - Aberdeen by day. Normally the 2 sisters do overnight sailings in each direction and sit in port during the day. My Uncle Niall and cousin Katie were on the southbound sailing today and said a daytime sailing was quite nice for a change.

The shuttle service was introduced as the Hjaltland is currently in dry docking, so with no flights and a ship down, capacity to and from Shetland was scarce.

With flights getting back to normal and the Hjaltland back from dry dock this weekend, everything should be back and to schedule by Sunday.

The Shetlanders have been kept happy through all this, the Orcadians haven't. Their link with Aberdeen has been cut off with the shuttle service. And their link with Scrabster was removed for 2 days while they sent the Hamnavoe to Norway. Only the smaller privately owned ferry was running to Orkney and it has a smaller capacity than the Hamnavoe. A enquiry has now been ordered.

Another BBC News article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/8634133.stm

And while it was a nice calm day as she arrived in Aberdeen, check out this video of the Hamnavoe on a winters day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhsBfNxWILg