I can tell that the ship has stopped the moment I wake. Once again Evan is wrapped around me and I totally fail to let him sleep as I try to extricate myself.

“Sorry, love.” I mutter as he rolls onto his back and groans. “I need to go and get dressed before breakfast.”

“Can’t you stay a bit longer?”

“No, and you need to get ready too. We’ve work to do today.” I’m struggling back into my trousers and almost fall over, causing a few curses.

“Slow down,” Evan orders. “If you fall on that hip again, you’ll be laid up for the rest of the cruise.”

“Sorry. I’m just feeling a bit weird, being out of my usual routine.” I shove my socks into my pocket, slip into my shoes and quickly fasten a few buttons on my shirt. “If anyone sees me going back to my room like this, I’ll get a reputation.”

“Yeah, at least tuck your shirt in.”

“I really do have to go,” I whisper as I drop down onto the edge of the bed and lean in to kiss Evan deeply. “See you at breakfast in about half an hour?”

Although we are at anchor, the sound is so narrow that the view from my cabin makes it feel as if the ship is right on the shore. From my side of the ship, I can only see the rolling hills and gentle slopes of the island of Bressay, Lerwick, the capital, must be on the other side of the sound and the ship.

I manage to get dressed quickly. I’m running out of clothes, but with outdoors looking decidedly cool today, a pair of jeans and a sweater will have to suffice. I manage to remember to put my used camera battery on charge and check that my phone has been quiet – I left it in my cabin overnight to charge fully.

I’m already eating some cereal by the time Evan trudges into the dining room. He looks a little flustered and clearly slightly stressed. “What’s the matter?” I ask as he slips into his chair.

“Nothing. Just trying to deal with all the comments to help Dad out. Last night’s release has gone down really well already. It’s had more than 100,000 views and most of the comments are really positive.”

“But not all of them?”

“No, there are always a few trolls. Dad usually keeps on top of it, but with this many I thought it best to spend a few minutes and help out. He seems to be a bit late starting today.”

“Oh, is he okay?”

“Yes, he messaged and apologised for sleeping in late. Said he felt a little tired. Maybe he’s getting a cold or something.”

“So, what are the trolls digging for?”

“Well…”

“What?” I try and not look too concerned, but I don’t feel that I want to be the cause of any friction between Evan and his audience.

“There’s a bit of homophobic stuff. Some people seem to have the idea that you’re my boyfriend or something.” His face lights up in a big grin. “Apparently nepotism is a bad thing, or some people seem to think so.”

“Well, I don’t know what can have given them that idea. Couldn’t be some daft Instagram post by any chance, could it?”

“Hey, I apologised already for that.”

“Yes, and I seem to recall that I forgave you last night!”

“Oh, you did. You very much did.”

“So, still good to do another shoot today?”

“Of course. I even remembered to charge the batteries when we got back yesterday.”

“Good. I want to try and film the approach to the quay from the tender this morning and maybe the return to the ship later. It might look good if we have some nice footage of the transfer process.”

“Oh, that sounds fantastic. That will give a real nautical feel to the video. It’s fairly calm this morning, so it should be easy enough. Should we get going to get a good position on the tender?”

“Sure, if you’ve had enough breakfast and, more importantly, coffee.”

“Yes, I’m good to go if you are.”

Filming from a busy tender isn’t as simple as I thought it might be and I’m not entirely satisfied with the results. The main problem is that the trip only takes a couple of minutes and by the time I’m set to start filming, we’re already more than half way to the dock. I should have started the camera before we even got aboard.

Evan tells me not to worry and captures some spare footage of the quayside with his phone as we dock. Lerwick is a strange mixture of the old and the new, with new piers and quaysides, but older grey stone houses mixed with newer more industrial buildings.

I had no idea that there was a castle – well fort – in the middle of the town, but it does give us a very convenient backdrop for Evan to do a short piece to camera about the town and the Shetlands in general.

We’d already decided that we were just going to stay in town, neither of us feeling the need to go and visit stone-age or iron-age ruins, but the narrow streets and assorted shops give us plenty to see and do.

We take a good hour to look around the museum, Evan suggesting that I’d look good in a Fair Isle sweater as we look at an exhibit of them. This then leads us back into town for him to find one for me. I have a very strong feeling that there’s another Instagram post in the early planning stages when we finally find one that he likes me in.

“I want a picture of you wearing it, down on the quayside,” he tells me when we walk out of the shop with my original sweater in a paper bag.

“Hmm…”

“What?”

“Might this picture find its way onto social media?”

“Well, it may do. Can’t I post about my cute boyfriend at all now?”

“You can, but only because you’ve admitted that you are going to. You are supposed to ask!”

“Sorry, I’m just so used to doing it automatically.”

“I know Evan. It’s fine, I’d already guessed your nefarious plan. Will here do? The ship is in the background.”

Evan nods and accepts my camera bag. He takes a series of photos of me with the ship in sitting behind me and then grabs a short video clip as well.

“Hungry?” He asks me as I get my camera bag back onto my shoulders.

“Not especially. I’m too well fed on the ship. Maybe a coffee and a cake though. That café back there looked quiet.”

I order for both of us, as Evan is deep into his phone, no doubt posting my picture to the world. When he finally slips it back into his pocket, he smiles at me sheepishly and takes a sip of his now cool coffee. “Eww… That’s almost cold.”

“Well, you have been on the phone for twenty minutes. What more can you expect.”

“Sorry, I got distracted by viewing numbers. We’re knocking it out of the park as the Americans say.”

“Is it really doing that good? Better than usual?”

“Yes, and Yes. The revenue figures will be truly amazing. The trip might even make a profit!”

“Oh, do you not always make money then. Sorry, I really don’t know how the whole making a living from YouTube thing works.”

“Well, mostly it depends on how many views a video gets, but it’s more important that the viewers stay long enough to see the ads that YouTube puts into the videos.”

“Right, that’s pretty much what I guessed.”

“I don’t usually have sponsors, so I have ads turned on most of the time. It always seems that a particular video does better overall if it gets lots of views very early in its life – the first couple of days. We’re up over 250,000 already. That’s about thirty percent more than I’ve ever done before. I’ve added 10,000 subscribers so far this week as well.”

“And subscribers are important too?”

“Yes. Some part of the YouTube algorithm takes it into account when it allocates the adverts. Nobody really understands how it works – maybe not even YouTube – but it does seem important for the overall revenue equation.”

“Wow. I’d love to examine the code one day. I bet it’s amazing.”

“Well, I don’t think there’s much chance of that happening. It all seems very secret. You’d need to apply for a job at YouTube.”

“Not my thing. I did apply at Google, some years ago, but I just didn’t have the skill-set they were looking for. Everything they do seems to be a bit of a black box. It’s all so shrouded in secrecy that its almost scary.”

“What, even to a programmer like you?”

“Yes. All the code I analyse is completely transparent. It has to be. The regulators would have a fit if I couldn’t show it to be fair. When I’m working on a piece of code, the people who wrote it will bend over backwards to ensure that it makes sense to me. If I reject it, they re-write it.”

“Really? They consider your opinion to be that important?”

“Yes, why do you sound so surprised?”

“No, not surprised, just a little bit amazed. Your work is so important, how do you manage to get a holiday?”

“Well, the amount of work I have to do is finite. I’ve actually had only a couple of new requests for my time so far, the whole trip. It’s like this sometimes. Quiet for a few days or even a few weeks, then it will all kick-off again.”

“And sometimes it gets busy?”

“Well, there can be a lot to get through. The computers at home take care of most of the detailed analysis automatically. I’ve written the tools to make my life as easy as possible. I just sometimes spend hours, or even days, working on the final reports.”

“Are you the only person doing it?”

“On the Island, yes. There are a few others around the world, but most of the companies I work with are Island-based and can have issues if they deal with an analyst from another jurisdiction.”

“The regulators know you?”

“Exactly. They have seen my work and even checked out my office. They know I’m doing things right and can trust my judgement. I’ve worked hard for almost ten years to get to this point though.”

“Sorry to ask this, Adam, but does it pay well?”

“Oh, it’s fine, Evan. Yes, it pays pretty well. Actually, it might be fairer to say very well. Let’s just say I didn’t need Mum to pay for this trip and I can afford to go to Africa on my own whenever I feel like it. Maybe if I was tied to a mortgage, it’d be a bit different.”

“You don’t have your own home?”

“No, I’ve always rented. Property on the Isle of Man is expensive. Not as bad as London or the South East, but pretty steep. Maybe one day, if I settle down and get married.”

“Is that something you want? To settle down and be married?”

“I’ve not thought too much about it, but it does have a nice sense of permanence and belonging about it.”

“You just need to find the right man?”

“Yes. I guess I’ll have to work on it.” I’m looking down into my empty cup, but I manage a smile as I look up from under my brows to catch Evan smiling back at me.

Evan is the first to break the stare with a clearing of his throat. “We’ve talked the afternoon away. We’d better get back to the tender. Are you ready to try the video thing again?”

“Yes, let’s go.”

“Adam?”

“Yes, Evan?”

“When we get back to the ship, would you mind if we had some time to ourselves. I really need to edit the next video and catch up on comments and quite a lot of other work-related stuff.”

“Oh, of course not. Maybe we should have the evening off as well. I’m not trying to get rid of you, but I need to check in with home and work as well.”

“How about meeting for dinner as usual and then having early nights then?”

“That sounds perfect. We’ll both be fresh for another day ashore in Stornoway then.”