On our second-to-last full day in the Faroe Islands, we backtrack from our apartment in Norðragøta all the way to the docks of Sørvágur, and embark on a day trip to the westernmost island of the country. Mykines is a truly special place, an island for island lovers. Located a few miles offshore and a thirty-minute boat ride from Vágar, Mykines is like the fingertip of the archipelago, pointing westward into the vastness of the North Atlantic. Beyond its last rocky holm, upon which stands an old white lighthouse, there is no further land until one reaches the distant shores of Greenland, over a thousand miles away. It is, in some sense, quite literally the edge of the Old World.
One comes to Mykines for its bird life. The sea-facing cliffs of this remote island, eroded over time by wind and waves, are brimming with the nests of razorbills, guillemots, and gannets; the dark basalt faces are plastered in guano. Down by the water’s edge, black cormorants gather in great colonies on the rocky terraces that are exposed at low tide, and far above, on the island’s grassy slopes, hundreds of thousands of Atlantic puffins have made their home, undermining entire hillsides with their burrows. Other migrants - fulmars, shearwaters, and storm petrels - use the island as a space to rest and congregate amidst their long journeys throughout the North Atlantic. It is an incomparably wild and alive place, and this is immediately apparent the moment we enter the narrow cleft that passes for Mykines’ natural harbour, and are greeted by the screams of thousands of circling seabirds, whose wings all but blot out the sky.
It is somewhat fortunate that we land on Mykines at all. As mentioned earlier, our original booking at the beginning of the trip was cancelled due to inopportune weather conditions. Although, at the time, we stood at the dock in Sørvágur and wondered what could possibly forestall a short boat ride under calm blue skies, this also becomes apparent as our little ferry boat, the Jósup, enters the rocky gap in the cliff. The tide forms a seiche that sloshes back and forth in the cleft, and the boat seems to rise and fall precipitously with every eddy. We virtually leap from the boat deck onto the concrete landing, accompanied by a host of other daytrippers, and a squad of middle schoolers on a class trip from Denmark. One gets the sense that one wrong gust of wind - or one disastrous wave - could easily dash the small boat into pieces against the cliff. As soon as it disgorges its human and non-human cargo, the Jósup quickly swings around and departs, eager to regain the safety of open water.
We proceed up a long flight of concrete steps cut into the cliffside, accompanied by the cries of the onlooking gulls and gannets. Two border collies that accompanied us on the boat ride, evidently excited to be back on home soil, go racing past us up the cliff and beyond to the village. Above the landing, we get our first look westward at the adjoining islet of Mykineshólmur, its distant lighthouse the goal of our day’s hike. From there, we enter the village of Mykines, a little settlement of forty houses arranged in concentric circles surrounding an island stream. Forty houses, many of which date back over two centuries - but these days, the permanent population has declined to ten or so individuals, who tend to the island’s farm, its sheep flocks, and its singular hostel and café. During the warm months, when the ferry runs twice a day (weather permitting) to Mykines, the village flourishes, and its summer homes are occupied by vacationers from Vágar and elsewhere in the archipelago. But during the other eight months of the year, the last few inhabitants of Mykines carry out lonely and isolated lives. The winter wind is cold and biting, and the swell of the waves makes the harbor inaccessible. The only way for food and supplies to be brought in - or medical emergencies to be brought out - is via helicopter. It is only a ten-minute flight across the ocean to the Vágar airstrip, but it might as well be an eternity away.
From the village, a grassy slope leads up to the western ridge of the island (other trails lead out of the village to the east, but the foreboding, mountainous eastern half of the island is inaccessible except by hiring a guide). As we climb the hillside above the village, we catch our first glimpse of the puffins, sunbathing on the grass, standing around awkwardly, and generally looking comical and bored. There is nothing especially attractive about these birds, except that they are uniquely clumsy and not particularly intelligent. The air is filled with puffins circling between the sea and the hills; we watch one puffin at a time as it swoops in, makes an attempt to land, but then aborts at the last second, apparently realizing in a moment of sheer panic that its trajectory - or maybe its entire purpose in life - are somehow off. The puffin does this over and over again - perhaps five or six times on average, by our count - until it finally musters up all its courage and talent, coming in for a crash landing while frantically flapping its fat white pectoral muscles in a vain braking maneuver. Inevitably, the bird is stunned for a moment, after which it lets out a self-assured hawww and continues about its business. All around us, we are surrounded by hawwws; the cumulative sound evokes a suburb full of lawnmowers on a Saturday morning - the sound of my childhood, transposed magically onto an isle in the middle of the Atlantic. Some birds return carrying small wriggling fish in their beaks, but most seem to come with nothing to show for all their effort. It is a testament to nature’s bounty that a bird so dumb can thrive in such a fashion. “If this hill weren’t all grass, they’d all be dead,” says Jane thoughtfully behind me. “Yes, but that’s the point,” I say.
To enter the puffins’ nesting ground, which lies on a sheltered hillside under the crest of the island, one must pay a small fee (in person or online), which goes to ensure that the trail to Mykineshólmur is adequately maintained, and that access to this sensitive area is tightly regulated. Beyond a small gate, where our prepaid tickets are checked by a hiking guide from the Faroese tourism board, we climb to the top of the island before turning and descending to the sanctuary via a stone staircase cut into the steep side of the cliff. As we enter the nesting grounds, the density of birds increases by an order of magnitude - all around us, flocks of puffins go flying by in loose formation, while the chainsaw hawwws can be heard emanating from every opening in the ground. It certainly seems that the entire hillside is honeycombed by puffin-created tunnels, and that one wrong step could put you foot-first in the burrow of a surprised puffin family. Eager not to disturb the birds, we stick closely to the walking path, which is marked by short yellow posts driven into the grass. Descending the steep hillside and another staircase, we come to an enclosed, chain-link bridge over the narrow gorge that separates Mykines from Mykineshólmur. In the olden days, there was only a rope straddling the sea, and the men of Mykines would have to brave the heights above the raging waves in order to reach the fertile bird-hunting grounds on the holm. Clinging to the slippery hillsides with bare hands, the fleyging (puffin-hunting) men would use long netted poles (fleygingarstong) to sweep unsuspecting puffins out of the air, mid-flight. Many men fell while doing so, or died scaling the cliffs to harvest the other sea birds and their eggs. What are now Faroese delicacies were once a dangerous, vital means of sustenance on this rugged edge of the sea.
On Mykineshólmur, the walk flattens out into a rolling seaside hillscape. We walk past a ram with its ewes, grazing contentedly on the grass in the salty breeze. Turning up a steep embankment at the end of the pasture, we reach the crest of the little islet and the old white lighthouse, which stands at the very tip of the land. Built in 1909, the lighthouse suffered a German air attack in 1941, and was thereafter repaired and became fully automated in 1970 - the year that the last lighthouse-keeper moved off the holm for good. It is now visited primarily by birdwatchers and summer hillwalkers, including the middle school class that has beaten us here. The atmosphere is festive, as people lie upon their jackets on the grass, unpacking picnic spreads brought from home or from the small café from the village. We sit for awhile, enjoying the sun and the fresh air, and watching the cormorants as they dive from the outlying sea stacks into the brilliantly blue waters of the Atlantic. On our way back to Mykines, we pass a memorial stone erected on the hillside to honor those who have died on Mykines over the centuries - shepherds, fowlers, and fishermen who gave their lives for the survival of their island community.
Back in the village, Jane and I are greeted by a swarm of schoolchildren carrying ice cream cones. Intrigued, we stop by the café, where we each buy a double scoop of strawberry and banana drizzled with chocolate syrup. We sit on a wooden bench in the cellar of the café, enjoying our desserts in solitude while awaiting our afternoon ferry ride back to Sørvágur.
Alas, the afternoon ferry never comes. We are informed by the café owner, who gets a telephone call from the captain of the Jósup, that a strong southeasterly wind is blowing, making the island’s boat landing too dangerous to access. Our return is pushed back from 4 PM to 10 PM, she announces to a chorus of groans from the tourists and patrons. Fortunately, Jane and I claim a table in the café, and set about making ourselves comfortable for the afternoon. Jane orders a cup of hot tea, and we share a bowl of fish stew - delicious, curried soup made with cod, carrots, celery, and potato, and served with a hot loaf of bread. We eat our dinner in silence as the atmosphere in the dining room turns positively brooding, the tourists sullen with the prospect of being marooned overnight on a remote island with - gasp - no internet access. My mind turns over the worst-case scenarios (big storm blows in, ferry can’t sail, we miss our flight to Copenhagen in 40 hours, we’re weeks late coming back to the States, I’m fired by my residency program, etc.).
After a few hours spent between worrying and dozing in the cramped café, I go out to catch a breath of fresh air. The Danish schoolchildren, nonplussed by the situation, are outside playing tag, flirting with classmates, or listening to music. I wander off on my own, walking down to the bank of the stream that runs through the settlement. The houses, with their bright facades and green turf roofs, are charming in the waning light. Using our binoculars, I watch as a pair of rams play-fight (or perhaps really fight) on a distant hillside, repeatedly backing up and charging their horns into one another until one gets tired and retreats. I walk down to the boat landing, above which a wind sock sits utterly still and limp on the cliffside, a hopeful sign for the stranded tourist.
Back in the café, Jane and I share another cup of tea (the poor lady’s inventory is practically bought out at this point) before the owner excitedly announces that the Jósup is sailing from Sørvágur. She asks us to gather our belongings and hurry down to the dock - the landing, if it happens, will be a brief one. We file out of her home, thanking her for hosting us all evening, while secretly hoping we won’t be back anytime soon. Down at the cliffs, we congregate on the steps above the landing. At length, the ferry boat appears around the bend and stops short of the harbor. We wait with bated breath for several tense minutes while the captain studies the dock, where massive waves are crashing over the concrete pilings. Finally, the boat engines hum to life, and the captain guns the boat forward at full speed, throwing her around 180 degrees so that she drifts barely against the dock, facing outward and ready to escape at a moment’s notice. The captain and his two sons appear on deck, urging us forward and pulling us onto the boat, two-by-two. In a few short minutes, the few dozen of us are seated onboard, and the boat comes alive again, quickly regaining open water. We wave back at the café owner and her family, who have come to see us off the island. One of the Danish schoolgirls, apparently traumatized by the forces of nature, is sobbing while a circle of friends try to console her. The sun sets behind Mykines as we sail away to the east, and soon we are surrounded by the familiar waters and villages of Vágar. At Sørvágur’s docks, a huddled mass of anxious parents awaits their stranded children. With no one waiting for us, Jane and I return to our car and make the long drive back to Eysturoy in the fading light, arriving home around midnight.
Our actual last full day in the Faroes is Thursday. After a weeklong marathon of early sunrises and late sunsets, we decide to sleep in and have a relaxed day. My knees, weak and wobbly after two years of hospital life, are battered from all of the elevation gain on our hikes, so we scratch our original plan of summiting Slættaratindur and opt instead for Jane’s preferred activity - shopping. In the late morning, after a breakfast of yogurt and cereal, we drive to Torshavn hoping to pick up something nice - or, as Jane puts it, “just have a look around.” We park at the harbor and spend the day walking around the city center, browsing craft stores, and wandering around the hilly neighborhood streets of the seaside town. Surprisingly, Jane abstains from any purchases while I walk away with a green argyle sweater from the local thrift store - for $10. In the afternoon, we drive back toward Norðragøta, following the curving highway along the waterways and fjords of Streymoy and Eysturoy while blasting Faroese folk music on the radio. Along the way, we make a pit stop at the Bónus grocery store in Oyrarbakki, just after the bridge between the main islands, where we met our German hitchhiker friend a few days earlier. At the Bónus, we pick up some food for a relaxed evening at home, including more fish cakes and chocolate and snack-packs of cheese dip for the road tomorrow, and a rather affordably priced jar of sturgeon caviar from Denmark. We spend the rest of the day packing, eating, and enjoying that lovely time in a vacation when there’s absolutely nowhere left to be and nothing left to do.
The next morning, while Jane sleeps in, I drive to the roadside overlook above Funningur, fifteen minutes away, to catch a final sunrise in the Faroes before we fly out at noon. I shoot a lovely timelapse - my favorite of the trip - of the sun rising over the mountains of Kalsoy across the water, paralleling the steep slope of Nestindar at it ascends into the eastern sky. Afterward, Jane and I have a last breakfast at the apartment, clearing the fridge of the last of our sandwich stash. With the bags in the car, we drive back across Eysturoy and Streymoy and through the undersea tunnel to Vágar, a farewell tour retracing our journey through the islands. After a brief stop for fuel at the petrol station in Miðvágur, we return to the tiny two-gate airport beside Sørvágsvatn, where we began our trip.
The flight back to mainland Denmark is short and uneventful. From the airport, we take the light rail into the capital, where we will spend the night before flying back to Maryland. At Nyhavn, the historic waterfront in Copenhagen, we find our hostel tucked in an adjoining courtyard, and check into our private room on the second floor. Summer is in full swing in Copenhagen; having come from the Faroes, we are severely over-dressed for the blistering, 90-degree weather in the city; shedding our outerwear and hiking boots, we go outside in t-shirts and flip-flops. The dockside and the adjoining corridor of restaurants and cafés are packed with patrons and tourists, and folks are sitting shoulder-to-shoulder beside the canal, legs dangling over the water while watching the boats go by. We wander for a bit, sharing a cone of cookie dough ice cream from Vaffelbageren, and finally settling on an outdoor seafood dinner at one of the many identically non-descript, tourist-trappy restaurants by the water. Jane orders a salmon steak, while I have a split lobster (which is in season and served with roe and dill dressing). We share a plate of steamed mussels. For what it’s worth, the food is quite good.
After a quiet evening, we return to the airport in the morning and catch our noon flight back to Dulles, our return trip significantly less delayed and less eventful than our outbound one. We’re back in Baltimore by late afternoon, with a long day of travel and jetlag behind us.
