Islands in the mist

All photos: Charles Hood All photos: Charles Hood All photos: Charles Hood All photos: Charles Hood All photos: Charles Hood All photos: Charles Hood All photos: Charles Hood All photos: Charles Hood All photos: Charles Hood All photos: Charles Hood All photos: Charles Hood

Diving trips often attract a lot of exaggerated claims – one of the greatest being that the trip in question is an ‘expedition’. The truth is that while the average liveaboard trip can be described as exciting, few dive trips are expeditions.

However, I recently joined a trip to the Faroe Islands that definitely made the grade as an expedition, requiring military-style preparation and planning, and giving divers the opportunity to dive some remote sites in difficult conditions.

Lying approximately 330km northwest of Shetland and about halfway to Iceland, the Faroe Islands are a small volcanic archipelago of 18 main islands inhabited by some 48,000 people, and is a self-governing part of the Kingdom of Denmark. The climate is technically defined as ‘maritime subarctic’, which is heavily influenced by strong, cool winds of the Atlantic Ocean. The result is relatively stable temperatures varying from an average of 4°C in the winter to around 10°C in the summer months; even so, the islands are rarely visited by divers. With many of the islands permanently surrounded by mist (the Faroes experience around 260 days of rain a year), the scenery is dramatic to say the least. Huge coastal cliffs dominate the landscape and are a haven for sea birds, whose eggs are still collected today for human consumption.

I could find little information about diving these remote islands, so I went back to basics with charts, tide tables and detailed meteorological forecasts. What made matters even more interesting was discovering a symbol on a chart that I hadn’t come across before. This mark indicated that the tide, at times, flowed with such ferocity it was a danger to even large shipping – like the Corryvreckan on the west coast of Scotland, but on steroids!

The vessel chosen for the trip was the diving liveaboard MV Halton, skippered by Bob Anderson – who, like the rest of the team members, hadn’t previously ventured to the Faroes but was up for a challenge. With a kind forecast, the initial journey to the islands involved a 20-hour steam from the northernmost tip of Shetland across the north Atlantic to the capital Tórshavn, on the island of Streymoy. We arrived to a reception of thick sea mist, which our radar effectively guided us through.

Having taken local advice, we headed to the west side of Streymoy on the next day in search of better topside visibility, as diving in the current conditions would have been too dangerous. With the Halton flat out at seven knots, we made little progress against the tide, so Bob altered course and hugged the dangerous rocky coast with constant monitoring of the echo sounder.

Eventually we gained speed, and a spectacular cliff at Lambatangi looked like a likely candidate for a dramatic dive – it didn’t disappoint. Underwater, there were gigantic boulders covered in peach-coloured dead men’s fingers, with huge sunstars clinging to any bare rock surface. The general topography was similar to that of the northwest coast of Scotland, and many similar species of anemone, sea lemon, nudibranch and crab had made homes in the crevices.

With even clearer weather still further to the west, we then crossed over to Vágar to dive under the Trøllkonufingur – a massive finger-like rock sticking out of the cliff. The underwater terrain here set the scene for the rest of the week. It was like a film set, with arches, cave systems and stunning submerged drop-offs.

Finding shelter in the evenings was easy, with the fishing ports of Sørvágur on Vágar and Vestmanna on Streymoy giving us easy access to the western dive sites. Exploring the islands in the late evening is perfectly possible in the summer months, as it doesn’t go dark until around 1am (even then, there’s enough light to walk around in).

While wandering around the towns and villages, it hit me how clean and spotless they were. Even the harbours were devoid of the usual dead boats, fishing gear and general clutter. The Faroese are tidy people. Moreover, there appears to be almost zero poverty, the cars are modern and houses relatively new, and the general living standard is high. Even the traditional grass-roofed houses, some of which are centuries old, are in excellent condition. The locals we met were welcoming and friendly, and somewhat astonished to hear we had come by boat from Scotland just to dive their waters.

Back on board the Halton, and with a glorious blue sky and a gentle breeze, two dives on the southern cliffs of Mykines proved fruitful for macro-critter lovers (or the ‘squidgy brigade’, as I call them). We observed many species of sea slug, and decorator crabs, shrimp, hermit crabs and short-spined sea scorpionfish were extremely common. In one of the caves, we even came across a friendly anglerfish.

Heading to the far north of Streymoy, we dived the cliffs at Snoppan, where we found similar critter life to that of Mykines. As the wind and tide were picking up, we opted for a change of scenery by entering the Sundini passage. This narrow stretch of water separates the two islands of Streymoy and Eysturoy, giving perfect shelter for a spot of muck diving. With a favourable tide behind us, we quickly covered the 30-odd kilometres. En route, two of the team members opted for an adrenaline drift dive under the bridge that joins the two islands at Nesvi – they covered a distance of 3km in about half an hour. The fjord of Kollafjørdur was relatively shallow at around 15m, with a fine, silty sea bed that was home to all kinds of small critters, including queen scallops, hermit crabs, sea cucumbers, plaice and scorpionfish. The brittlestars were so numerous that, at times, the sea bed appeared to be moving.

Following this dive, we contacted a local diver, who offered to show us the positions of a couple of wrecks. The first, the Olavur Gregersen, was a passenger ferry that ran aground and sank in 1989 – it lies on top of another wreck that also sank at the same spot in the early 1980s. It is quite broken up in its midships, so the bow and stern are the best parts of the dive and support most of the marine life found on the wreck.

The second, the Lincoln City, was an British trawler that was sunk during the Second World War just outside Tórshavn harbour. Due to its location, we had to get clearance from the harbour authorities to dive the wreck, which lies in 20m of water and 6m proud of the sea bed. Although it is rumoured to be full of ammunition, the only finds we made were a small quantity of old beer bottles.

To round off the trip, we dived the walls of the 400m-high cliffs of the small southern island of Stóra Dímun. Here, the walls that were in the lee of the prevailing currents were covered in massive yellow sponges; otherwise, the rocks had huge scour marks on them caused by the ferocious tide. The return journey was a gruelling 28-hour steam into a force 5 to 6 wind, which saw half of the crew confined to quarters. The rest of us simply gaffer taped a laptop to the mess table and watched DVDs.

So was it worth it? I put this question to all the team members, who unanimously agreed that it was. The diving was good; not out-of-this-world spectacular, but interesting and varied enough to justify the effort. The dramatic scenery around the Faroes puts these islands in a category all of their own and the execution of a week of diving, dive planning and cooking gelled the group together in ways that simply doesn’t happen when everything is done for you.

Special thanks to:

Bob Anderson of MV Halton (www.mvhalton.com ) and Kirsty McWilliam for organising the trip – especially the catering!