Sea Kayak Shetland
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South East Yell
The island of Yell is often characterized as dull and uninteresting, and indeed most of the interior is peat bog, but the coastline has much of interest, and the south east corner from Burravoe to Mid Yell offers one of the best day trips in Shetland.
Starting from the fine sandy beach alongside the Mid Yell Pier we head out east into Colgrave Sound. The uninhabited island of Hascosay offers an interesting diversion if there is time, and Fetlar is a bit further away to the east.
Landing on Hascosay
Just after passing the beacon at Vatsetter we head into the bay at Ayre of Birrier. The Birrier itself is a huge stack linked to the main island with a tortuous passage through to a shingle beach. Continuing south past various other caves and skerries we turn into the bay at Otterswick, to look for the White Wife, the figurehead of a wrecked ship which has been raised as a memorial near to the north shore of the bay. Otterswick incidentally is well named. This is one the best areas in Shetland to see otters.
Caves at the Stack of the Horse
The next bay at Gossabrough offers a fine north facing beach for a lunch stop, and the road along the back of the beach makes it a convenient alternative start. The next section of coast is continuously interesting with one particularly fine cave, and then we come to the most impressive feature of this coastline, the Stack of the Horse. It's as well to allow some time to explore all the arches and caves in this area, but the interest hardly wanes until we round the large spit of Heoga Ness sheltering the small harbour of Burravoe, where we will have left a car for the shuttle back to Mid Yell. Title Goes
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