Faroe Islands Sea Kayaking
In this blog Paddlesports Instructor George Fell recalls some of the experiences he encountered when paddling the Faroe Islands with his partner and offers some useful advice for anyone considering a similar journey. This isn’t a daily breakdown of a trip, but more a snapshot in to some of the good and the challenging! Over to George…
“What does a Glenmore Lodge Paddlesports Instructor do on his time off? Go paddling of course. This time it’s a sea kayaking mission, up to the Faroe Islands. The islands lie only 200 miles north of Scotland, but our journey begins by driving 600 miles south to catch a ferry in Dover, driving to the very north of Denmark and then spending 36 hours on another ferry.
The Faroes are a group of 18 islands, about halfway between Shetland and Iceland. As a group they’re similar in size to Orkney, and have comparable tidal races sweeping through the gaps. However, without a large landmass nearby they’re exposed to swell from every direction, and they have a similar climate to Scotland – wind, rain and fog are all as likely as sunshine.
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Unlike Norway, Sweden and Denmark, there is no allemansrätten – the right to roam and wild camp – so finding a place to stop for the night is not always simple. Because much of the Faroese coastline consists of steep cliffs, most sensible landings have houses or villages, so finding places to camp proves an on-going challenge throughout our travels. On the plus side, once you’re away from the more populated islands, there are some lovely quiet municipal campsites, and we use these whenever we can.
Jenny (my long-suffering partner in both paddling and life) has been studying Faroese – more closely related to Icelandic than any of the other Scandinavian languages – and is rejoicing in her ability to say “my friend will have the lamb’s testicle soup”. Apparently, it’s a local delicacy – but luckily, we fail to find anywhere that sells it.
We have 2½ weeks before the ferry home, and (given the similarities with Scottish weather) we haven’t made definite plans. We find a suitable spot to abandon the car near Tórshavn, leave a note inside the windscreen and set off. 13 days later we get back to the car having completed a figure of eight loop – 10 days paddling and 3 days waiting for storms to pass. Sadly, the weather closes in for the last few days, so we miss out on going round Suðuroy, the most southerly islands.
What follows are a few highs and lows from the trip.
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Exposure
On the north coast we reach the end of the world. The point where civilisation stops and the adventure really begins. Suddenly there’s no land for a 180° sweep of the compass, and underneath the chop there’s a big ocean swell rumbling into the bottom of the big cliffs. Coming round the corner the tops of the cliffs are in the cloud, but we can see the shapes in the fog as the wind whips around forming spirals and eddies, which occasionally drop down to pick up vortices of water. With a 750m vertical drop, these are some of the biggest sheer headlands on the planet; there are millions of birds who seem completely at home in the whirls and gusts where wind, rock and water meet.
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The bit where it nearly went wrong
It’s our second day on the north coast. An early start at 0400 sets us up to follow the tidal flow round a couple of headlands. The swell has been gradually picking up and things are now quite lumpy. If we’re both on the crest of the wave I can see Jenny, but otherwise I just catch a flash of her paddle every now and then. The wind is a decent force 5, but once we’re round the corner into the tidal race we should have wind, wave and flow all going with us.
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We’ve got conflicting information about where eddies form on this final tidal race of the day, so we take a wide line, well out from the cliffs, to see what’s going on.
As we come round into the main race the wind picks up and it looks as though we’re going to have an exciting time. In the 4 x 6km area that we need to paddle through I can see loads of waves rearing up; they’re not just going a bit foamy on top, some of them are properly breaking. I don’t see any weaknesses; there’s nowhere in the channel that will give us an easy ride.
I try to position myself close enough to Jenny that I can see her at least from time to time, but far enough that we’re not going to surf into each other. I think we could be in an eddy, where the flow doubles back on itself. With the wind and swell behind us progress should be quick, but the cliffs are moving really slowly. Going back isn’t an option, and the conditions look even worse if we push further out. We’ll just have to paddle right through it, alternately riding and avoiding the waves as we go.
After a few close calls, the inevitable happens. I hear a rumble from behind me that’s deeper than any of the previous waves, and feel the boat starting to pick up to a steeper angle than I can surf out of. I see the bow go down, and I tuck forwards for the loop as the stern of the boat passes over my head. Hands tight on the paddle as I’m now being surfed backwards and upside down. I feel the stern catch and catch a quick breath as the bow comes out of the water and the boat goes vertical for the second time. Then the wave dumps onto me.
Quickly the wave loses its power. Roll! This one really has to work…and it does.
Eyes up – where’s Jenny? I see the stern of her boat as she’s dropping into an epic but controlled looking surf and then she’s out of my sight, dropping down the face of the next wave.
Down on my deck things are less of a mess than I’d anticipated. I’ve lost a water bottle and my hat. I see my hat sinking slowly a couple of boat lengths away. I sprint for it with one eye on the approaching waves. Nothing too big – grab it – wring it out – back onto my head – then a quick turn to run downwind. I catch another glimpse of Jenny.
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Now there’s time to think. Is that going to happen again and again until one of us fails to roll? If Jen swims would it even be sensible to put my boat close to hers in these conditions? Let’s get a bit closer together but not too close. Is now the time to get the radio out? I wish I’d done up the velcro on my collar before we hit these conditions – my top half is pretty wet. Need to keep paddling, keep watching and stay in control.
Ooft! Here comes another one. A spot of frantic back paddling, a slap of foam but no real power to that one. I think this might turn out OK.
In twenty minutes we’re in waves that I might choose to surf for fun, and there’s a few I’m actually making a half-hearted effort to catch.
In another twenty minutes we’re back on terra firma; the old joke is definitely true today – the more firmer, the less the terror. We drag the boats up the storm beach, get the tent up and I climb into a sleeping bag to warm up.
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The warm welcome
After another lumpy day on the north coast, we come around the north-east corner of the Faroes, to the island of Svínoy (literally Swine Island, the same meaning as Swona in the Pentland Firth). We come through a small tidal race, round a headland, to find that the wind suddenly picks up to around F7 directly in our faces for the last 3km of the day – the kind of conditions where briefly stopping paddling to throw a chocolate bar into your mouth costs you another 5 minutes of paddling. Bodies aching, we creep round into the sheltered bay that protects the village of Svínoy. A family waves to us from their farmhouse, and as we pull into the harbour a car drives down to meet us. The occupants welcome us, saying that they’ve never had sea kayaks visit the island before, and show us where to find the municipal campsite.
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On the campsite our neighbour comes to visit us. As with many Faroese people, he’s both a farmer and a sailor. He quizzes us about our adventures and has useful local knowledge about the following day’s paddle. On learning that we’re from Scotland, he also points out a memorial to the crew of the Stromness seal catcher ‘Rachel’, which was wrecked in the bay off Svínoy whilst sheltering from a storm in November 27, 1786. The house in the other direction has a beautiful mirrored sculpture – which turns out to be a sobering tribute to those who’d drowned at sea!
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When the contours lie close together
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The Faroe Islands have cliffs. Loads of really big cliffs. The contour lines on our 1:25000 maps just blend into thick swathes of brown.
As we set off towards our destination, Jenny points out that although there were a few contour lines between the sea and the campsite, she’d seen a blog post about arriving there by sea so it must be possible to get up. Either way, we’re committed; there aren’t any other landing options, and there’s too much tidal flow to turn around and go back.
As we paddle towards the village, the cliffs look pretty unbroken. As we get closer in, a steep ramp slowly resolves itself. Closer again, and the choice is between a high vertical concrete wall (which would involve standing up in your boat at the height of the wave and perhaps a small jump), or a set of exceptionally slippery steps in the swell. To add to the entertainment, a minibus load of tourists arrive and happily started taking photos of us.
Eventually Jenny finds a slab for us to crash onto, followed by a quick scurry before the next wave arrives. A few rusting metal mooring rings at the top of the slab suggest that we weren’t the first to have this idea. Then we discover the campsite is at the top of the hill – the contour lines were right. At least there’s a nice view.
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The rescue that wasn’t
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It turns out that there aren’t many sea kayakers in the Faroes. I’d been introduced to one through a friend, a lovely chap who was very helpful and provided a load of invaluable advice. Obviously, the Faroese are a sea going nation, they know about the sea, but not many people know about sea kayaks. A fortnight before we headed out, another sea kayaking group had been out and needed rescuing – twice. This had been in the news and as a result most Faroese people know that the sea is dangerous (true!) and that sea kayaks are dangerous toys that shouldn’t be out on the sea (arguable!)
This led to a few interesting conversations with locals about what we were planning, and whether we should be there. Given the kicking we had in the tidal race early in the trip, I did sometimes wonder if the locals were right!
On the calmest day of the trip, in the middle of a 15km crossing, we contend with a fishing boat that is very keen to “rescue” us. They are convinced that we’ve been swept away by the tidal flow, and it takes some time (during which time we drift about 1km off our planned course) to convince them that we aren’t in imminent peril!
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Things to know if you want to go paddling in the Faroes
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It is stunningly beautiful.
There are some big sections (20km+) of cliffs with no sensible landings and sometimes no landings at all.
You can get English language weather forecasts because there is 4G reception almost everywhere.
Based on our fortnight, the wind is either F1-2 or F6-8. Which bracket you’re in is probably as much to do with where you are relative to the cliffs as it is what the weather forecast says.
There are some big tides, and lots of days with multiple bottlenecks, so you end up having to go through some races or around some headlands at less than optimal stages of the tide.
The outside of the islands are exposed in a way that most of Scotland isn’t – the swell is just as important as the wind and tide.
It is committing – you could definitely get into real trouble here – but it is also utterly stunning paddling.
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About George Fell
After a flirtation with meteorology, working for British Antarctic Survey and the Met Office, George now devotes all his time to paddlesport. Like the water rat, he believes that “there is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats”.
George joined the Glenmore Lodge Paddlesports team in 2018 and helps deliver a range of sea kayaking expeditions, including to the North West of Scotland, Kull, Raasay, Rona and Jura. George also delivers both British Canoeing Performance, Leadership and Qualification courses, but also the range of skills training course, from Discover level to Advanced.