Faroe Islands

31 July 2021

Faroe Islands

As promised before, I would write about the Faroe Islands if we had seen a bit more of it.

Our first stop was, as said, at Sørvágur, on the island of Vágur. A quiet village with few exciting things. But a beautiful area for walking! A few guests soon saw this opportunity and came back on board very enthusiastic. A few even took a dip in the icy fjord!

Others have explored a large part of the archipelago with a rental car. This is very doable because of the many tunnels between the islands. They also had a wonderful day and came back full of stories. There were also people who took the opportunity to just do nothing for a day. Reading a book in the salon, editing photos on the laptop, just doing nothing.

After a day in Sørvágur, we wanted to see more of the islands from the water and sailed north, past the west side of Streymoy and the north side of Eysturoy, to dive in between Eysturoy and Kalsoy. Because of the fog we didn’t see much ‘outside’, but once in the fjords the fog cleared every now and then and the views were breathtaking. To get the most out of it, we sailed as far as possible into some of the coves on the east side of Eysturoy. Here and there we were called by a friendly harbor master who asked what we were doing. They seemed a little sad when we said we were just coming to have a look and that we were not staying.

Our target for the day was the second city of the archipelago; Klaksvik on the island of Borðoy. This fishing town with 5000 inhabitants (10% of the entire population) is beautifully built around a narrow fjord. Here we were kindly welcomed by the harbor master, who was quite proud that such a large sailing ship came to berth in Klaksvik. They hadn’t seen that in years! The honorary consul of the Netherlands also came to take a look and took Richard shopping. He himself worked in the fishing industry, so we got two boxes of fish from him, his sister owned the wholesale store. There our cook could get most of what he needed in nice big packages, and we were not allowed to pay. What a generous act by Hanus Hansen and his sister. Again, thanks a lot!

I would have liked to cruise around here much longer to see more of the islands, but the weather report said it was time to go. The northerly winds, which made it difficult for us to get here, will slowly die down and then a southerly current comes in. So, this morning we left the Faroe Islands behind us.

Our next destination is the Shetland Islands, where we expect to arrive tomorrow evening (Sunday). We will probably not go ashore there, but we will sail between the islands and anchor in a bay, so that we can still see, smell, and taste a bit of these islands.