NORDIC LEGENDS

THE BLEAKLY REMOTE FAROE ISLANDS WERE THE STUFF OF SAILING FAIRY TALES FOR KILA ZAMANA

- Kila Zamana

“Stop filling the boat with cheese!” I exclaimed to Paul, as he stowed a massive food shop in Ponta Delgada ahead of what would be a nearly 2,000-mile passage to the Faroes. Tons of cheese, marinated Azorean peppers and pasta were tucked into every corner around the boat. It felt far more than needed.

“Don’t scoff at me, you won’t like the groceries in the Faroes. Plus, the cheese will be useful,” he points out.

The Faroe Islands are a subarctic archipelago of 18 islands rising dramatically out of the North Atlantic, three to four days sailing between Scotland, Iceland or Norway. Culturally they are a split between Gaelic and Old Norse, and, just like the Azoreans, the Faroese aim to be a self governing nation. For cruisers the islands are usually a short stopover on the way to Greenland or Svalbard, yet the islands have always had a particular allure of being somewhat ‘terra incognito’.

The first three days of our passage from the Azores to the Faroes were spent blue sky beam reach sailing, followed by 15 dark days of slow progress, almost all sailing into easterly winds through an eternity of fog interrupted by dead calms. It felt like we were crossing over from our sun and light-filled world into an alternative universe, where the Norse mythological beasts Sköll and Hati devoured the sun and chased after the moon. All celestial light was gone, and the ocean was completely lifeless.

It was day 18 when a pack of pilot whales greeted us and we finally caught sight of land. The autopilot began beeping insanely, alarming us that it had lost course. The southern Faroe islands, Suduroy and Sandoy, are known for aggressive tidal currents; we made just 30 miles in a day as we zigzagged to our destination in Tórshavn.