Veantro Bay is a bay on the northwest coast

Coast

A coastline or seashore is the area where land meets the sea or ocean. A precise line that can be called a coastline cannot be determined due to the dynamic nature of tides. The term "coastal zone" can be used instead, which is a spatial zone where interaction of the sea and land processes occurs...

 of Shapinsay

Shapinsay

Shapinsay is one of the Orkney Islands off the north coast of mainland Scotland. There is one village on the island, Balfour, from which roll-on/roll-off car ferries sail to Kirkwall on the Orkney Mainland...

 in the Orkney Islands

Orkney Islands

Orkney also known as the Orkney Islands , is an archipelago in northern Scotland, situated north of the coast of Caithness...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

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At the head of the bay is a large stone, thought to be associated with Viking

Viking

The term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...

 settlement of Shapinsay, known as the Odin's Stone. It has been suggested that prehistoric man on Shapinsay, who inhabited Castle Bloody

Castle Bloody

Castle Bloody is a prehistoric feature on the island of Shapinsay, Orkney, Scotland. Hogan observes that while the feature is marked as a chambered mound on the UK Ordnance Survey map, the structure is more properly and specifically classified as a souterrain or earth house. Slightly to the north...

 and Burroughston Broch

Burroughston Broch

Burroughston Broch is an Iron Age archaeological site on the island of Shapinsay within the Orkney Islands of Scotland. The site overlooks the North Sea on the northeast part of Shapinsay. Slightly to the south lies Linton Bay. Excavated in the mid 19th century, Burroughston Broch has its earth...

 would have exploited the seafood

Seafood

Seafood is any form of marine life regarded as food by humans. Seafoods include fish, molluscs , crustaceans , echinoderms . Edible sea plants, such as some seaweeds and microalgae, are also seafood, and are widely eaten around the world, especially in Asia...

 resources of Lairo Water

Lairo Water

Lairo Water is a surface water body known as an ayre situated on the western coast of Shapinsay in the Orkney Islands. This brackish water body is separated by a narrow bar of land from Veantro Bay. This wetland is an area where a variety of bird species may be found...

, an ayre

Ayre (landform)

An ayre is a name often applied to shingle beaches in Orkney and Shetland. The term is derived from the Old Norse wordfor a shingle beach - "eyrr" - and may be applied to ordinary beaches, to cliff-foot beaches to spits, bars and tombolos, but only if formed of shingle. It is sometimes wrongly...

 at Veantro Bay. In 2005 the Orkney Community Councils opposed an application for a fish farm on Veantro Bay citing environmental

Natural environment

The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....

 concerns and competition with local fishermen

Fisherman

A fisherman or fisher is someone who captures fish and other animals from a body of water, or gathers shellfish. Worldwide, there are about 38 million commercial and subsistence fishermen and fish farmers. The term can also be applied to recreational fishermen and may be used to describe both men...

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