Halfway Summary

29 July 2021

Halfway Summary

We are about halfway through the journey and reached our biggest challenge: the Faroe Islands. We haven’t been able to see much of the islands yet, the fog keeps most of it hidden. But what we see is breathtakingly beautiful! And the bits of fog make it even more beautiful!

When we arrived yesterday in Sørvágur on the island of Vágar, we were welcomed by the men from immigration. That is usually not such a good sign, but this time it was actually nice! They told us where we could moor and gave us a mountain of information about beautiful places on the islands. The first formalities were arranged quickly.

Then the next challenge: everyone had to do a PCR test and stay under quarantine until the results were back. So, we arranged a bus, and we all went to the airport, where the test centre had remained open especially for us. A lady from customs came to tell me which forms she would like to have. She came later in the day to collect the completed lists. Customs clearance arranged.

This morning the results of the tests were in and everyone, as expected, tested negative. So today everyone can explore the islands. I will tell more about that later.

But the summary halfway through.

The wind, or lack of it, played a big part. Without the engine, we would probably still have been in the Irish Sea. Thanks to the engine we were able to find the wind and sail beautiful parts. There was no wind because a high-pressure area was following us and the benefit of a high-pressure area is that we had great weather with lots of sun and calm seas. And partly because of those calm seas we were able to spot a lot of marine life almost daily!

Here’s what we’ve seen so far:
Seals, common and grey
Porpoises
Common dolphins
Atlantic white sided dolphin
Northern bottle-nose whale
Long finned pilot whales
Minke whales
Sei whales
Fin whales

And don’t forget the birds:
British storm petrel
Leach’ s storm petrel
Shag
Common terns
Guillemot
Razorbill
Gannets
Puffins
Skua’s (arctic, pomarine, great)
Arctic tern