THE LOCAL whitefish trawler Guardian Angell has been clocking up its rare fish finds. A 5ft long deal fish, Trachipterus arcticus was caught at the start of the month, while last week’s finds included an Atlantic fanfish, Pterycombus brama and then a pair of rays bream Brama brama.

The fanfish and bream were all caught on fishing grounds close to Skerries and, coincidentally, at a similar time and location to the pair that the same boat caught last year. The fish were donated to the NAFC Marine Centre for addition to its species collection.

Dr Chevonne Laurenson of the centre …

IT MAY not be a particularly catchy title, but the award of the BS EN ISO 14001:2004 environmental standard to Lerwick Port Authority has put the harbour board in a jubilant mood.

The obscure name is an internationally recognised certificate for strong environmental credentials. No other port authority in Scotland has so far received the award, which has been achieved after 18 months of improvements to environmental practices.

It means Lerwick is now capable of decom­missioning oil and gas installations, upholding the same strict environmental standards demanded by the oil industry.

LPA’s chief executive Sandra Laurenson said she was delighted …

TOWERING high above its fellow visitors to Lerwick Harbour this week was the rather distinctive CSO Apache pipe-laying ship.

The unusual-looking mammoth 123m-long structure, owned by Aberdeen-based company Technip UK Ltd, was berthed at Holmsgarth from Wednesday as it sought respite from the strong westerly gales which have been battering the North Sea on and off over the past seven days.

Many of the other harbour visitors this week were in for a similar purpose, including the Norwegian live fish carrier Hedda, the cargo ship Fonnland and fishery research vessel Hakon Mosby. A host of supply boats arrived for shelter …

ALARM bells were briefly set ringing after a Maltese oil tanker lost power shortly after leaving the harbour at Sullom Voe this week.

The 239m Adafera stopped 10 miles north of Fethaland at 1.30am on Wednesday, about an hour after dropping the outbound pilot, loaded with 83,500 tonnes of Brent crude and chartered by Shell to discharge at Tranmere on the west coast of England.

SIC ports and harbours general manager Jim Dickson said: “We were preparing to mobilise our tugs when she regained power at 2.30am and slowly steamed to the north west away from land.”

Mr Dickson said …

Harbour news
SOMETHING of a record week for Scalloway Harbour in the week to Friday in that the quayside was virtually devoid of anything to record. The reason for this was the prolonged westerly winds causing vessels to seek shelter on the east coast rather than run the gauntlet of the westerly approaches. There is known to be a lot of offshore activity to the west of Shetland at present.

As a result there were no vessel movements in Scalloway harbour other than the Ronja Settler, regular fish-farm tenders, minimal fishing activity and a couple of irregular fishing vessel visitors: …

Bertie Nicolson
1920-2008

I FIRST got to know Bertie Nicolson of Brindister quite a few years ago, when we used to buy the occasional dairy calf to raise for suckler cows. The impression I gained, and never changed, was of a man of great intelligence, firmness and integrity, and also of great com­mitment to Shetland’s agricultural community.

Bertie was born on 23rd February 1920, second son in a family of four, and attended the Gulberwick school. He left at 14, and from then on was pretty much dedicated to the life of the land, in private and in public life. …

I’M writing this from Bressay, and having checked online the business numbers today it’s petrol that once again seems top of the inbox. Crude oil is today below $65 a barrel. Earlier this year it peaked at $146. It’s hard to imagine such a fall.

But wherever the hard pressed Shetlander buys petrol – the Mail Shop in Bressay or in the metropolis of Lerwick – there is one consistent point on petrol prices. We are as a community being utterly ripped off. Prime Minister Brown the other day suggested that petrol retailers should cut their price as international crude …

25 YEARS AGO

The official inauguration ceremony for the new Skerries ferry “Filla” scheduled for Wednesday had to be postponed as it was not possible to get the ferry to Shetland from Norway because of bad weather.

The 80 foot ferry and her crew of four will wait in Eggersund until weather conditions improve and SIC director of construction, Mr Billy Smith, said he hoped the vessel would arrive in Shetland at the weekend. A council spokesman said the inauguration ceremony will be held on Skerries in a fortnight’s time.

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A recent Shetland concert held in Aberdeen was a …

Skerries tea party
THE WOMEN’S Guild in Skerries held a tea party and auction sale in aid of the Christian Aid Harvest Appeal last Thursday. This organisation helps people all over the world regardless of religion and tea parties were held in many different and unlikely locations ranging from office spaces to mountain tops. Some were big and attracted hundreds of folk, others were small.

In Skerries, 15 people attended at Sunnybrae and, in the auction, the bidding was brisk with buyers prepared to pay well over the odds for items that they set their hearts on. One of the …

Anyone for Golf?
Anyone wanting to get early delivery of the sixth generation Volkswagen Golf can get their order in now.

You won’t get delivery until the start of next year, but the prices have now been released and there are fuller details of the kind of trim you can expect in exchange for your hard-earned shillings.

We’re told there’ll be three basic versions, known as S, SE and GT.

The S model is the starting point but it has seven airbags, clever brakes, climate control and heated door mirrors among other things.

The SE adds an uprated eight-speaker sound …