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TIME Traveler

By Graham Holliday Monday, Oct. 25, 2004

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Style Watch: Rattan Revolution
Diversions: All Talk
Food: Season to Taste
Outdoors: Comfy Camping

Few people visit Britain's northernmost specks of rock—the Muckle Flugga and the Out Stack. But even if their irresistible, Tolkienesque names aren't enough to lure you there, the tours run by Jonathan Wills should. The wildlife expert escorts boatloads of visitors around the 100-plus islands that make up the Shetland archipelago (the aforementioned pair included). His daylong Top of Britain cruise departs from another delightfully named island—Yell—and is a big crowd puller, with seal and seabird encounters aplenty as it slices through the bracing North Atlantic waters. "On every trip, I've shown visitors tens of thousands of seabirds and dozens of seals at very close range," says Wills. "Shetland is one of the best places in the world to see big seabird colonies."

Another cruise takes in the islands of Bressay and Noss—a nature reserve with a population of some 20,000 gannets, 40,000 guillemots, 5,000 kittiwakes, 4,000 puffins and hundreds of razorbills, shags and great skuas. And roughing it is definitely not on the itinerary: crew members aboard the 12-m vessel, the Dunter 3, serve a champagne lunch, complete with Shetland-grown strawberries, salad from Wills' own garden, and smoked mackerel and marinated herring from the locally famous Shetland Smokehouse. For more information, visit www.seabirds-and-seals.com.

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