Iceland Trip Part 10 - An Unexpected Stop
We knew that it wasn’t going to be the smoothest of sailing back to Denmark, the storms hitting Iceland were just too frequent and intense and it was now October in the North Atlantic not July. But when we boarded the Norröna, we hadn’t realized that a storm was headed our way (Ok, while we were waiting in line to board the Norröna I got a text notification that the departure time had changed for leaving Tórshavn, Faroe Islands. I thought meant the departure “time” by what I thought was an hour or two. Little did I realize it had changed the day and the time of departure (one day later, two hours later) . . . Oops, my bad!). Before departure the Captain, as usual, made a ship-wide announcement and mentioned the increasingly high swells we would be encountering on our journey to the Faroe Islands. Boy was he right.
Ann and I went to bed at our usual early time . . . because it was already getting dark early that far north. However, in the middle of the night I woke up, realizing that the ship was slowly, and extremely rocking back and forth. Well . . . not quite back and forth. As I lay there I could tell the ship was rocking in a figure 8 motion that was . . . very unsettling. Luckily, we weren’t standing up or fully awake for that. I wisely fell back to sleep, or was it the rocking sent me back to sleep.
The next morning, the seas were not much better, which made walking to breakfast, and from the breakfast bar and coffee stand, quite the adventure. There were lots of folks (read: including us) walking around like we were drunk, lots of laughter every time we hit a big swell, and the periodic plate or glass hitting the floor. I have a video on my phone looking out through a window, with a horizontal line in the window that is just above the horizon. I kept the line horizontal in the frame the whole time, and you see the horizon line rocking up and then down. It’s pretty disturbing. I guess I would have loved it as a kid; as an older adult, not so much.
Fortunately, as we approached the Faroe Islands and the channels between the islands, the seas died down, and entering Tórshavn was not a problem. We pulled into the harbor, did a 180, and then backed into our slip.
Ann and I decided to watch the disembarking of vehicles through one of the lounge rooms. The day was pretty nasty with higher winds that blew mist around even when there wasn’t one of the very frequent showers coming through. The weather forecast for the next day was a bit better, so we decided to just chill for the day.
As predicted, the next day’s weather was . . . a bit better. It was still cold with a steady wind, and there was still the periodic squall coming through, but when it wasn’t raining, it wasn’t like misty rain was being blown all around like it had been the day before.
So Ann and I headed out for a walk, figuring we’d time it to have lunch off-ship.
Tórshavn has an Old Town that is clustered around the harbor, as well as a significantly larger area that is comparatively newly developed. We decided to wander around the old town areas both to stretch our legs and to get a feel for what it must have been like to live here back in the old days.
Like most older towns, the streets are fairly narrow and definitely not made for modern cars. Many of the homes have interesting construction quirks and the old town area also has its fair share of turf-roofed homes.
As we made our way to the other parts of the harbor area we came across a variety of boats, to include this rather impressive three-masted sailing ship.
As you can see, despite being significantly larger than the other privately owned boats in the harbor, it is nothing compared to the Norröna.
We wandered around the harbor, ducking in and out of a store or an area under an overhang whenever the rains got too intense.
After we worked our way around the harbor, we headed inland and looped back, strolling past a small cemetery on our way to our lunch destination - the Tórshavn Irish Pub!
After a hot meal of pub food and a really good ale, we took a different route through the winding streets back to our ship.
Walking the winding streets to discover what lurked around the corner was perhaps the most interesting part of our walk.
We wandered at will with no real destination, other than we knew we had to be back at the ship in several hours.
So we stopped and explored little side nooks just to see what was there.
Eventually, we walked back past the boats in the harbor, pretty much ready (read: wet) to call it a day.
And that was it. We climbed the stairs to get back onboard the Norröna to get out of our wet clothes and get ready to set sail that evening for the last leg of our voyage.
We departed as planned - in the early evening - and though there were some steady swells, they were less than the leg from Sey∂isfjör∂ur to Tórshavn (and I suspect the night before while we were in port), and the ride was much less of an adventure. By the next morning, the seas were already calming down and after we passed the Shetland islands, all was normal.
We arrived in Hirtshals, Denmark almost an hour early and departing the ship went smooth as silk. We didn’t even have to stop at customs (Dammit, we could have brought home some Icelandic hotdogs!). The drive went smoothly and, given that I’d been relaxing the previous few days, I didn’t feel tired, so we kept going. With a stop for gas and one for dinner, we made it home that same night.
The end of an excellent adventure!