A Day at the Races
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| From More Faeroes |
The “capital “ of the Faeroes is Torshavn on the island of Streymoy, and our passage there from Sandoy was once more “interesting”. We set off in fog and light winds and this time successfully worked out our own tides which whisked us North round the rocky West coast ( not that we saw it!) and into the Sound between Sandoy and the more Northern islands. Here the visibility cleared to show the splendid scenery, and some sort of frontal system coming up fast from astern. At first it looked like we might reach the lee of Streymoy before it overtook us , but it was not to be and we hurriedly reefed right down in the overfalls off the point , doing 11 knots over the ground. Thereafter the wind was all over the place, going from three to 30 knots and we gratefully turned on the engine to get us into the harbour. The only problem was that we couldn’t see the harbour as fog was streaming over the valley to its west and completely obscuring it. We got in quite safely but decided that exploring the tight tidal passages between the Northern islands would probably require a lot of use of the engine, and as all the more northern islands are connected by tunnels and bridges, we might do our exploring using a car engine instead.
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| From Exploring Faeroe |
Torshavn itself is very attractive, and the yacht moorings are right at the centre of the town. It is very similar to being tied up in a miniature version of Copenhagen with brightly painted old warehouses , and on the other side of the quay , old black wooden turf roofed buildings that date back to the 18th century. The surrounding islands are reached via a good modern infrastructure of roads and tunnels , and we have spent a very pleasant 3 days exploring the islands and their villages with their colourful “lego“ houses surrounding the older, turf-roofed traditional buildings , hiking up hills and round lakes and generally reacquainting ourselves with shore going muscles.
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| From Exploring Faeroe |
Saturday found us in Fuglafiord, along with about 600 rowers and 60 or more brightly painted double ended Viking skiffs. There are 3 sizes; 6, 8 and 10 oared . Oarsemen ( or women ) sit side by side and pull relatively short , very narrow bladed square loomed oars attached to a thole pin with a rope. The children row a 500m course and the adults 1000m , and the stroke rate is high ( presumably because of the short thin oars ), especially over the final 100m. Most of the stroke is pulled by body movement , ending up nearly 60 degrees from the vertical and of course the best crews were as ever those that maintained their technique through to the end of the race despite the sprint finish.
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| From A day at the races |
It was all very exciting, and the commentary is relayed on national radio so that everyone we spoke to knew about the event and who was winning. The commentators seemed to get most excited about the men’s crews, but from my perspective the best crew was the home ports women’s crew whose technique was immaculate. Seeing all those boats together was reminiscent of old pictures of the Grindadrap, or whale hunts , which were carried out in almost identical boats rowed in the same way.
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| From A day at the races |
Ah , the whale hunt. It is inevitable that we come to that. Since recorded time the Faeroese have herded pods of pilot whales into dead ended fiords, and slaughtered them once they are beached. This is no longer done in rowing boats , but using the double ended motor boats .The carcasses are immediately butchered and shared out amongst the whole population, who cure it and eat it through the winter. Until fairly recently this was an absolutely necessary food supply, but times move on and recently pictures in the media of the killing amidst blood soaked water have enraged people around the world. There are two or three vessels from Sea Shepherd patrolling the islands, and at every headland we have come across crewmen watching for whales, presumably to alert the Sea Shepherd vessels so that they can interfere.
I completely accept the argument that this is a Faroese tradition , that the whale meat is their National dish, that being told to stop by a load of meat eating , city dwelling foreigners who probably don’t know their chicken legs were ever attached to a live animal, is completely counter- productive. Sea Shepherd is almost certainly hardening the attitude here. However, these animals are at the top of the food chain and contain sufficient levels of mercury and PCB’s that the local Medical Officer of Health has now advised against the human consumption of the whalemeat. Both sides produce scientific “evidence” to support their entrenched positions, but my reading and enquiries suggest that there is not enough reliable data to say one way or the other if the population can withstand this killing. My own view is that to completely wipe out a whole pod must inflict terrible losses on the genetic pool of this animal and there must be a compromise somewhere. On the other hand , compared with the biological destruction of sea beds by scallop dredging in British waters ,or the huge quantities of fish taken by the pelagic fishing industry, the environmental effect of the Grindadrap is minimal.
The Faeroes are a beautiful austere archipelago with welcoming people . They enjoy a brief summer interlude of pleasant weather which we have been privileged to share. After we have left they have to survive in a very inhospitable environment for the rest of the year. Perhaps that, more than anything else, explains their desire to harvest what they feel is theirs to get them through the winter. Wiser folk than Sea Shepherd are attempting to persuade them that the Pilot Whales could bring greater benefit by underpinning a whale watching industry , rather than by filling their larder with potentially dangerous food. I wish them all well.