Faroes adventure: continued
A collaborative post, by a fellow crew member, edited and translated from the the Dutch original: https://sy-ataraxia.nl/?p=598 (All photos Rob Kay). Best read in the app or browser.
To recap: I’m sailing in Cherokee, a Dutch charter yacht, from Wick in Scotland to the Faroes, via Orkney, in June 2023. Anne-Margot (below) is the primary author of the text.
“Cherokee is located on the quay in Stromness, a fishing village in the Orkney Islands. We are on board with 3 crew members and 5 guests from Scotland, England and the Netherlands. We are preparing for the crossing to the Faroe Islands, which lie like a few spilled crumbs between Scotland and Iceland in the vast blue. The weather reports speak of an occlusion front moving over from the southwest. Opinions are divided between the various weather stations about exactly where and when, but we would do well not to wait too long before leaving. It could otherwise be an unpleasant trip.
So the next morning we leave the harbour, with the wind directly against us, but with the current. There is a big tidal race under the island , and if I were sailing on my own boat I would turn back into the harbour: my 28-footer would not be able to navigate this force of water. Steep wave heads seem eager to sink their teeth into every ship's hull they encounter. But Cherokee is 50 feet and equipped for any type of weather, and skipper Jouke doesn't hesitate for a moment. Cruising against the westerly wind, we foam and bubble our way to the west. When I look around I see five broadly grinning faces, and two green ones. (I was one of the green ones - ed)!
As we pass, we wave to port at the Old Man of Hoy , a striking rock pillar of basalt and sandstone about 140 meters high. He doesn't wave back, but perhaps from such a distance our sail is an imperceptible triangle against an endless dark blue mass. Once at sea the wind drops and we sail with a clear breeze towards the Faroe Islands, 180 miles north. We pick up the waiting schedule again, and at the end of the afternoon I cook a simple hot meal on the gimbal stove that we have installed for the occasion. Then it's time for a quick nap, in preparation for my watch.
There is no question of night sailing anymore: when I take over Belinda's watch at half past two in the morning, the sky is pale blue and the horizon pink. The sun doesn't seem to know whether to set or rise, and hangs just below the horizon like an actress who quickly changes costumes in the wings and rises again.
When we arrive it will be early in the morning, although it could be late in the evening, or in the middle of any day. The sun is hidden behind a silver veil of water vapor, causing my last sense of time to evaporate. An excruciatingly soft breeze slowly pushes us in the right direction. Slow enough to turn on the diesel, but I don't dare break the silence. Belinda does turn on the radar: it is impossible to say how far we can see, but it is clear that it is not enough to navigate safely. You can only suspect the islands behind the impenetrable fog banks because you can hear the sheep bleating softly from a distance. You also seem to be able to smell the grass they eat, if you have a better sense of smell than I do.
And then suddenly an island emerges from behind that gray blanket, reflecting the cool morning light so brightly green that I have to squint my eyes a little. Despite the plotter showing us our exact position, it still comes as a surprise, and I imagine what the looming of this island must have been like for all those seafaring peoples who had to make do with only their own senses for their position.
We moor in the port of Vágur, on Suᵭuroy. 'Zuidereiland', or 'Zuideroog', as many Wadden Islands end in '-oog'. In Vágur we rest from the crossing and take a long walk to the steep cliffs on the west coast. Here the ocean extends west to Greenland. From above we have a beautiful view of the birds that nest in the rocks here. Hunters, petrels, seagulls and puffins jostle for a spot in the rock. A little further inland we suddenly stumble over the meadow birds: curlews, avocets, oystercatchers and other waders whose names I don't know. And wherever you walk, there are thickly woolly sheep grazing quietly, as they have been doing since no-one-knows-exactly-when.
When we return from the walk, a beautiful old sailing ship has moored next to us in the harbour. The Johanna, built in 1884, was used as a fishing vessel until 1972. Afterwards she lay unused in the harbour until she was saved from destruction for one crown by the local rowing club in 1980. Of course, that story appeals to me, so I drop by for a chat. The association has just returned from a fishing weekend, and before I know it I am standing over a huge container of dead fish selecting dinner for tonight. They become three cod, which continue to look at me pityingly from the plastic bag. I get help with cleaning on the quay. "Half an hour in the oven with salt, pepper and lemon," the fisherman confides to me. It will be the best meal of the month.
As announced, an occlusion front is indeed passing over. Rain, wind and a temperature where you prefer to curl up by the stove with a book. But because it quickly becomes stuffy with eight of us at the ship's stove, we rent a car to see more of the island. The landscape seems to shrug its shoulders at the dark gray weather and the rain that waves in visible gusts over the plains. If you are an island where the ocean has been pounding against you incessantly for so long, a little water from above can't hurt you. We, on the other hand, after half an hour of standing on the west coast watching the pounding of the same ocean in the depths, are soaked and shivering.
Fortunately, there is café Mormor ('grandma'), where the eight of us still curl up by the stove with a book and a bowl of hot soup. Finally, no man is an island.
Island hopping
When the front is over, we sail from Vágur via Sandoy north to Tórshavn, the capital of the Faroe Islands.
After the quiet harbors we have seen so far, this place with less than 15,000 inhabitants feels like a true metropolis.
Witness of creation
How can such an archipelago be put into words? It seems as if nature is busy creating itself on the spot. Unperturbed, she squeezes water from the rocks, pulverizes rocks into sand, conjures grass from barren plains and blows seawater into clouds, apparently for her pleasure. If you blink twice, everything is different again. Our existence in this landscape is but a blink of time.
The moist sea air turns every steep slope into a cloud factory, so that every island has a cap made of the finest white wool. The constantly changing tidal current creates patterns in the water that I can watch for hours, hypnotized. From the hills, which reflect the sunlight in a thousand shades of green, you see deep blue eddies moving through the even deeper blue bay. And at midnight, when the sun is at its lowest, my own shadow in the copper light on the dock is about forty meters long.
This message in a bottle is not sponsored or intended as advertising, but I do like to promote Cherokee! Would you like to go sailing sometime? Then take a look at the website .”
Beautifully written and photographed. I live on the other side of the Big Water but I will read about taking this trip!