The overnight sleeper service between Caithness and the central belt would provide a big boost for travellers going to and from Orkney, according to MSP Jamie Halcro-Johnson.
Mr Halcro-Johnson, whose home is in Orkney, said: "This news is very encouraging.
The Orkneys are a galaxy of islands to the north of Scotland with over 50 islands in all but only 17 inhabited.
The Welsh fly-fishing team, led by team captain Marco Orsi, Osprey Club, had travelled to the Orkneys to compete in the international fly-fishing championship and the teams from the four home countries were looking forward to a cracking match - with good catches.
THE Orkney islands have been voted the best place in Scotland to live, despite new fears over a hard-drinking culture.
But campaigners on Orkney claim that around 2000 of the 25, 000-strong population have a drink problem.
HISTORIANS believe one of America's best-loved heroes, General George Armstrong Custer, could have hailed from Orkney.
But a few weeks before his death, General Custer wrote to his wife Elizabeth about receiving a letter from an Orkney businessman claiming the Custer name originates from the isles.
Titled The Hamnavoe Free State [Free State London], the installation reappropriated Sinclair's exhibition last year at the Pier Arts Center in Stromness, on the main island of Orkney. Part of Scotland, the Orkneys are near the mainland, but they are also geologically and socially distinct; in terms of folklore, culture, and history they are perhaps closer to Scandinavia.
This was confirmed by The Hamnavoe Free State [Library], 1999, which featured a low table heaped with books covering relevant subjects, among them student activism, urban guerrilla movements, and Orkney mythology.
And so sitting on my desk is a postcard of the stunning Ring of Brodgar in the Orkneys and on the back that moment captured in a few lines: the incredible light, the sparse but tranquil view of water and islands and sky, the shiver of another brief squall and the awe of those craggy standing stones.
It is the indications of man's presence down the millennia in this exposed and now remote corner of Scotland that makes the Orkneys a land of intrigue, fascination and, today, rugged charm.
I WOULD love to go to the Orkney Islands on a short break.
TRY Wildabout Orkney Holidays at www.wildaboutorkney.com or call 01856 851011.
