It's taken a while, but I've finally put together a collection of images from a trip in June, accompanied by Dr Alex's Mustard and Tattersall, beyond the fringes of Scotland into the wild North Sea, to the historic and wildlife-rich Shetland Isles.
Fulmar, nesting on the island of Unst
The water can be pretty cold and the weather can be wet and windy, but the visibility, both above and below the water, can be spectacular.
An edible crab sheltering in kelp off the island of Yell
In midsummer it is never dark: the "simmer glim" glows from a late sunset to a very early dawn.
A Polycera nudibranch from the island of Noss
The overnight ferry from a dour, dreich Aberdeen arrives in Lerwick, a town more Norse than Scots, in the morning. The Valkyrie, a marvellously adapted fishing boat, waits in Lerwick for the latest group of dry-suited divers. It's essential to have plenty of space in your suit as the Valkyrie specialises in wholesome, varied - and large - meals. The produce of Shetland, fruit of the land and sea, is delicious.
A Limacia nudibranch, also from Noss
Shetland is noted for a collection of wrecks, both shallow and deep, old and new as well as cool, rich reefs and an abundance of temperate-water "critters".
HMS E49, a submarine from the first World War, lost in action with all hands and a war grave
It's relatively unusual for Valkyrie to host shallow-water divers, as the mixed-gas wreck community are her usual customers, but she takes a boat-load of camera gear in her stride, even when the Coastguard drop in for a cup of tea.
The lava flows and metamorphic cliffs of Eshaness in Northmavine
As is common in temperate British waters, the schedule is for two dives a day, with plenty of time to relax and to run ashore. The remains of thousands of years of human settlement litter the coastal cliffs and peat moorland of the islands, whilst seabirds, otters and whales patrol the cliffs and beaches. The violent volcanic birth of the Atlantic has left, in places, a twisted landscape of frozen lava and metamorphic rock.
Tim
