Shetland Ports and Harbours

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Walls

Facilities:
Toilets (at the public pier), showers, electricity, fuel (on arrangement), fresh water, telephone (at shop), shop, post office, swimming pool, waste reception, launching slip, boating club (open weekends), bus service, café

Walls lies on the south side of Shetland's West Mainland, at the head of Vaila Sound and sheltered even from southerly storms by the islands of Linga and Vaila. It has a public pier, a marina with 2 visiting berths and a second pier at the Walls Boating Club. A wide berth must be taken around Kirk-a-Skerrie, in past the public pier. Power and water are found at the public pier, which is more suitable for larger yachts. The cheerful boating club and the family run bakery and tea room are also close at hand. It is the starting point for the annual Round Foula Yacht Race as well as the Walls Regatta also held every year. Just off Vaila Sound is an award-winning restaurant, Burrastow House, where much of the food is grown on the premises in one of Shetland’s most productive gardens.

Vaila island has an area of around 3km2 and supports a magnificent Edwardian mansion, the largest house of its kind in Shetland as well as the ancient watch tower, Mucklaberry Castle.

Lying 15 miles west of the Shetland Mainland is Foula. The island has no safe all-weather anchorage but the harbour at Ham Voe has been improved and there is also the option of taking the ferry from Walls. The population of around 40 people is greatly outnumbered by the islands seabird colony thus the name, deriving from the Norse fugl ey (meaning ‘bird island’). It is dominated by its sheer cliffs, which reach their peak at The Kame (1,220 ft), Britain's second highest sea cliff after St. Kilda. The Hoevdi Shoals, where the White Star liner 'Oceanic' foundered, lie east of Foula.

Facilities:
Toilets and telephone (1 mile away at the airstrip), fresh water, waste reception.

The cliffs between Walls and Sandness are wild, beautiful and fringed with reefs, not all of them well-charted close to the cliffs (perhaps because the 19th century Royal Navy surveyors reasoned that no-one would ever be crazy enough to sail that close!) The tide race between Sandness and Papa Stour is fierce and can be dangerous. In rough water more turbulent water lies between Papa and the Ve Skerries to the north west.

West Burrafirth makes a good anchorage featuring a pictish broch and shelters the pier for the Papa Stour ferry, currently being renovated (2005). To the east lies uninhabited Vementry Isle and the sound of Swarbacks Minn, the entrance to Aith Voe, Olna Firth, and Busta Voe - a former naval anchorage. As you enter, look up towards Vementry’s First World War watch tower and two gun emplacements which guard the sound. The Isle also features Shetland’s best-preserved chambered cairn.

Facilities:
Toilets, showers, fresh water, fuel, telephone, waste reception, waste oil reception, launching slip.

Papa Stour’s sea caves are some of the best in Britain and are a Special Marine Area of Conservation: the island’s volcanic formation has been eroded to form an amazing coastline of stacks, arches and caves, most spectacular of which is Kirstan‘s Hole – however you’ll need a very calm day and a rubber boat to explore them properly. There is visitor berthing available at the old pier in Housa Voe as well as good summer anchorages in Hamna Voe, Culla Voe, and West Voe. The island is rich in history and has substantial populations of skuas, auks, and terns.

Facilities:
Toilets, fresh water, telephone (1/2 mile), waste disposal, launching slip.