Generally speaking I have not been tempted to sit and spy upon people from my vantage point on the rock: there are, quite frankly, more interesting things to look at. (I make an exception for the men spraying marks on the road in a tempest of wind and rain.) Most people appear remarkably similar through the windows of the Visitor Centre: woolly hats, fleece jackets, trousers and boots, plus or minus waterproofs. Men and women, boys and girls. I look very similar when I go out. We are in uniform, as are men in business suits or women in leggings and short dresses.
Today, however, a different type of visitor in a different uniform.
At 11.10 a.m a mini convoy of three 4x4s and a sports car drives with deliberation up to the carpark. Equally spaced on the road, headlights on. H.M. Coastguard Search and Rescue. Doors are opened, fourteen figures in ultra-high visibility clothing get out. Are we in for some excitement? A fishing boat sank on my arrival in Lerwick at the beginning of the month, although I swear it was nothing to do with me. Am I about see a thrilling rescue before my departure? The absence of flashing blue lights suggests otherwise, and the leisureliness of foregathering on the clifftop confirms that this is a training exercise. Kit is assembled – very slowly. Stakes are hammered into the ground – very slowly. Is everyone having a go? Probably they are.
After about two hours we are ready for the first pair to abseil off the cliff. After two and a half hours, my curiosity gets the better of me, and I wander nonchalantly down towards the carpark, sketchbook and binoculars to hand. I am not really going to gawp, not at all. I do not take my camera with me. After all, I have been rather guiltily spying on them, and drawing them, from a great height. Drawing does not count as spying – definitely not – but I confess to a high level photograph.
As I get within earshot it is obviously a basic training exercise: everyone is definitely having a go at everything, from pulling on the lines to going up and down the cliff on a rope. The Man in Charge is issuing instructions: “remember Safety”; “hand signals?” – the figures at the top of the cliff wave hands above heads in a circular motion, and the team pulls in unison.
Oddly enough, few of the other visitors to the carpark take much notice of all this bright yellow activity on the clifftop. A lot of them are in hired cars, so perhaps they think this is Normal For Shetland. Or perhaps, like me, they are self-consciously Not Looking.
