sixth day

Today was our last day on Suduroy. Our flight leaves tomorrow morning and taking the ferry would be too risky because the schedule is not very reliable. We packed the evening before so this morning was not any different. But I developed a cold during the night and was sniffing the whole day.
We went to Hov again with two others and to the lighthouse again. There we found the remains of a computer and several shot gun shells. Apparently it's a sport to shoot at birds and old computers before dumping them in the ocean. We took the scenic route back to Hov over the mountain ridge. It was very pretty!
Then we got picked up and brought to the ferry. The ferry ride was very relaxing (we stayed inside). In Torshavn we had to wait for a while to be picked up and then arrived at a very nice youth hostel, where the local team lived.

However, things weren't very well organized. Another lady from L.A. had to spend the night as well because her flight left even earlier. We were told that there were two empty beds, one in a girls' room and one in a men's room, I would have to sleep on an air mattress. We had to wait for everyone to arrive, because each room only had one key (for 6 people). When they finally showed us the room it turned out that it had been open for a while, since one of the girls was already there. But of course there was no empty bed, because the team leader had forgotten that another girl arrived the day before. But there was one spare mattress (a real one). Since the girls room was very noisy and full of stuff mom and the other lady stayed in the men's room and I slept on the floor on a very narrow air mattress in the girls room. Mom slept halfway under a table to leave some space on the floor for the others to able to move. Naturally I couldn't sleep because my nose was either running or stopped up. Supposedly the hostel management did not want to rent out another rooms to Sea Shepherd and even if we had wanted to pay for our room ourselves they wouldn't rent out any other rooms. Seems like a very bad attitude for doing business.
Our accommodation in Suduroy was definitely much nicer!
We got up again at 5:30 and were able to get a ride down to the ferry terminal and took the bus back to the airport. I'm so looking forward to sleeping in my own bed and taking a nice hot shower!!!

fifth day

Today mom and I and a girl from Denmark went to Hvalba. Our lookout was on the north side of the bay next to a road tunnel. We watched the sun rise and then I sent in the weather report. Cloudy but clear. No rain. Only ten minutes later it poured and fog came in and we couldn't see a thing. Shortly after it cleared up again. We walked around the steep slope a bit and looked around. There was a cave next to the tunnel which looked like it was a test drill in the rock. Inside there was lots of trash and one or two dead sheep.
Then we got an unsuspected break from what was going to be an uneventful day when the team on the other side of the tunnel called. They needed the jumper cables that were in our car because theirs wouldn't start. So we drove down to the restrooms where they were stranded and helped. Some time after we got back we got some great entertainment.
Three men unloaded wooden boards and rolls of wire fence. They started randomly attaching boards to previously installed wooden posts. Apparently they were trying to build a fence. It was very amusing to watch. The whole construction looked like something some small kids had built. It turned out that next Saturday is sheep slaughter day, so they were building this fence to round them up and load them onto trucks.
Then two other farmers came and talked to us. Of course we talked about the whales and they gave us the usual arguments. Paul Watson is a criminal, whale meat tastes good, better than pork or beef, those animals all have growth hormones in them, they need whale meat, it's a humane method, they don't go looking for them, they only kill them when they swim by, there are 800000 pilot whales which is more than enough, they don't kill that many. We are misinformed. Bla bla. Iceland's tourism is increasing because they sell whale meat. 15 men died during a grind 100 years ago (so what?)
I also asked about the sheep. They kill all the sheep except a few good females and I guess some breeding males because they would die anyway in the winter. They don't shear them because they can't earn money that way. The older guy said he slaughters them in his basement but shoots them first.
One good thing the other guy said was that his daughter and someone else saw pilot whales recently and that they asked that it should not be reported.
Meanwhile the fence construction continued but it still didn't look any better. We could also not quite see the purpose behind it. We also saw the Danish navy ship. We saw some small fishing boats but other than that the fence guy was our only attraction. Just before the end of our shift the Sandvik team went down to the Hvalba dump and found some unidentifiable bloody substance. We drove down as well and had a look. The place was on the west coast and absolutely beautiful. High cliffs, waves crashing, sun setting over the ocean, the perfect place for a cafe, bar or picknick area. Instead they installed a cement shoot on the cliff and turned it into a dump. They used to drive old cars down here, which is now forbidden but there was so much trash and it stank! It was really sad! We took pictures of the bloody stuff, but still weren't sure what it was. We reported it to the campaign leader, perhaps someone will find out.

fourth day

Same procedure as every morning. I didn't sleep too well even though I moved to the couch because it was so windy outside that the draft in the house made the door to our room clatter. Some time in the middle of the night I stuck a piece of cardboard between it to make it stop. Mom went to the westcoast lookout Famjin today and went to the one near the other house again. This one is on the north end of the Tvoroyri fjord. It was still very windy and only limited visibility, then it started to rain so we could see even less. Nothing happened. The wind was so strong the parked car was shaking! And of course the windows fogged up and then we really couldn't see anything! We decided to drive back up to the house for a potty break, made some tea and drove back down. A couple of cars came and went as always. At this lookout post which is a dead end a couple of cars always come by. Either they don't have anything to do and just drive around for fun, they want to dump their trash and then decide otherwise because we're here or they spy on us. The others told me about the old man in the red pick up truck who has been harassing a couple of volunteers several times and has already been told off by the police. He still comes every day for a look.

It started clearing up a bit at around noon and I took a nice walk back up to the house and back. It was nice and sunny then!!!
An old man came by with his Labrador puppy called Panter and talked to us for a few minutes. So far we had only seen the ferry, no other boats, no whales. We took the car back because it needed to be taken down to the car shop to get the license plates fixed. We sat at the lookout point closer to the house for a while and talked to a man who had harvested his potatoes. He spoke Danish with us since I said "kartoffler!" but apart from where I was from and something about no whales today that was all I could understand and communicate. We returned to the lookout post and saw two ships, one medium and one large, probably trawlers. Then we had a photo shoot with the friendly sheep and decided to walk down to the cave. That was lots of fun and with amazing scenery. We almost got splashed by huge waves coming in. After we returned we met a boy with his dog Anton, very nice.

second day

I will refrain from mentioning names, instead I will write ###.

Our second day started at 5:30, breakfast and preparations etc, left the house at 6:20. There is a schedule that organizes the teams, cars and location. Everything is switched around so that no team is at the same place all the time. So mom and I were in two different teams today. Mom was in Hov and at the southern lighthouse with her team mates and I was in Vagur. We kept track of the boats (not many), watched the sunrise and enjoyed the company of a couple of sheep. Then we saw the "grindmaster's" speedboat driving by on our road (pulled by a truck). The Grindmaster is apparently the one who organizes and leads a grind. He had apparently brought it over on the ferry. Sine we had to go on a potty break anyway, we decided to drive to the town and past his house to see if the boat was at his house. It was not. We took a look around the west coast lookout post which was very pretty, with big cliffs. We walked up and saw what the Faroese thought about this landscape. They had turned the other side of the cliff into a dump. A sewer drain ended there and heaps and heaps of rusty metal was just tossed over the side. Very sad.
Today was also the beach clean-up day, organized by sea shepherd crews all over the world. So ### and I got some bags and started picking up trash on the Vagur killing beach. It's not really a beach, more like a mucky shore. We found every kind of trash you can think of, shoes, socks, gloves, bottles, cans, cups, candy wrappers, ice cream wrappers, juice boxes, plastic bags, shotgun pellets, buckets and tons and tons of rope, fishnet, yarn and plastic box wrappers. We collected almost 3 huge garbage bags full in two hours, which was the designated time. While we were carrying away the last bags we saw the Grindmaster's boat being put into the water. We went back to our lookout post and it was fairly warm, the sun was shining! My team mates decided to put up a sign saying "free hugs". So we waved and smiled at everybody driving by. We got lots of waves back, some with smiles, some with confused looks. We also got a few fingers and determined stares on the road. One man and his daughter stopped and talked to us, very nice. One girl stopped and got her hugs, she thanked us but didn't want to have her picture taken. I guess the ones that do support us are afraid of their neighbors/family/community. The Grindmaster's boat drove out full with people in yellow life jackets, we suspected that he might use the boat for joyrides as well. We spent the rest of the day there, mostly in the sun. When the Grindmaster's boat returned we danced like bimbos so they could see us being happy.

A note about yesterday: the whole Hvalba situation arose because of a supposed sighting from the ferry. But at around noon some Faroese person had told someone from our crew that a grind would happen that day. In hindsight we shouldn't have changed around the teams, because we showed them that by giving us false information we would react. And as to our tourist cover - first of all I doubt that there are many tourists here and if there were they wouldn't be sitting in this little town with no particularly interesting things to see, all day in a car.  :-)

third day

Our third day started the same as before. Up really early, breakfast, leave. Today I was the driver of the team in Hov (what mom did yesterday, today she was in Vagur). It was very foggy and nothing happened. The most exciting thing was seeing a man rounding up his geese and putting them in his pickup. We were supposed to go to the lighthouse on the southern tip of the island at least once, so we drove there at around 11 and said hi to mom's team. The store in Vagur was closed until 3 so we made our potty break in Porkeri and continued on to the lighthouse. To get from Vagur to the lighthouse we had to drive through an insanely long tunnel, two way this time, but no lights except ours. The view at the lighthouse was amazing, right on top of a cliff with lots of seagulls flying around and of course lots of sheep. Nothing happened there either. Only a couple of cars came and left immediately, we think we might have blocked their sunday outing viewpoint. One family did get out of their car but made sure to keep their backs on us. We drove back and stopped at the Vagur grocery store for a potty break and hot chocolate, where we ran into mom and her team. Nothing happened at their lookout either. We returned to Hov where shortly after our arrival our team leader arrived to pick me up. I was supposed to take the new rental car to the other house and pick somebody else up and continue to the other lookout close to it. The car was the first 6 gear car I've driven and at first I couldn't figure out how to get it into first gear, because the reverse gear was towards the front left. Naturally I stalled it quite a few times, before I figured out that you had to push down for reverse gear and that the front left was the first as usual. So I picked up ### and drove to the lookout. Nothing spectacular there either. We watched some shepherds and their dog inspect their sheep then headed back.

first day

So, after sitting on the ferry for an hour we finally left Torshavn. It was dark outside by then so we couldn't see anything. When we arrived we were picked up by four Sea Shepherd people and brought to the house we would stay in. We had something to eat and then prepared our air mattresses and sleeping bags etc.
We got up at six and had breakfast. Everyone had already left and we had to wait for our team leader to return. We then drove to the other house and went through the legal stuff and our job description. We also took turns walking to three lookout posts. The scenery is amazing! And so much fog!!!

We returned and went over the formalities, for example if we were willing to be arrested in case a Grind happened. Hmm...
Then another volunteer, mom and I drove down to the lookout point and stayed there for almost three hours keeping track of the boats coming and going. We returned to the house because our team leader needed us to drive the cars around (some had to go get their license plates reinstalled, one new rental had to be picked up etc.) On our way to the ferry we got a report that off the isle of Litla Dimun some speed boats and little black dots in the water were seen. So after lots of phone calls and texts, everybody was in alert mode and the potential killing beach (Hvalba) nearest the island was manned with additional teams. We picked up the car and then drove to Hvalba, up a foggy windy road and through a foggy narrow tunnel. And guess what, it was a two way road with little diverging spaces every now and then in case of oncoming traffic. On the hill down to Hvalba we stopped at a lookout point and met the other team. At first it was sunny and you could see Litla Dimun clearly, no boats. But the report said the boats were on the east side of the island and we were on the west side. Then all of a sudden the fog came in and the island disappeared, just like that. So mom and I were sent into Hvalba "incognito" with the new car that nobody knew. And because we were new nobody knew us. So we parked next to the only store in town overlooking the beach snd small harbor. We noted all suspicious activity. What was strange that a group of kids immediately recognized us as sea shepherd people even though we didn't wear any visible crew gear. That made our cover acting like tourists a little hard. Especially since taking pictures didn't use up much time - there aren't many different background settings. So we waited and watched until one fishing ship returned and started unloading something. We were called to take a look because the other team thought it might have been seals. So mom went to take a closer look and it turned out that they were transporting live sheep. So much ado about nothing. We were told to observe a while longer and were then annoyed by a group of little boys. Finally we drove back home through the scary tunnel and had dinner with the others.

first adventures

The flight from Billund to Vagar went well with a great view of the Danish west coast. On our way in we didn't see much except cloudy peaks and then the runway. We saw the old airport building first which didn't appear inviting but right next to it was the brand new terminal building with two gates (one revolving door each). Free WiFi, nice bathrooms, a duty free store and one baggage roundabout is about all there is. A customs inspection dog sniffed every bag, very cute little guy. Outside was an ATM, an information desk, a car rental place and the check in area. We asked if we could use the phone to make the requested call to Lucas, but they told us it would cost 50 kroners (6 euros). So we asked at the airline desk and called but didn't reach anybody.
So we took the bus to Torshavn and talked to a guy while waiting. He was nice but then on the bus I made the mistake of telling him why we're here. He remained very friendly but tried to defend the Grindadrap with the usual arguments (it's a tradition, its humane, it's better than mass production meat farms bla bla). Anyway, the discussion remained civil and then he got off. The country side is amazing, very green, no trees, lots of little streams and water falls, road tunnels and lots of sheep. Sheep everywhere! On the sides of the road, no fences. The bus stopped right infront of the ferry terminal where a huge ship was already waiting. We still had lots of time so I left mom with the luggage and went to a grocery store to buy some fruit.
The ticket office was still closed when I returned so we confirmed at the kiosk that we only pay on our way back. Then we headed upstairs of the terminal building and went on board. At the reception desk I asked, to make sure, that this was the ferry to Suduroy. And thank god I asked because if I hadn't we would have ended up in Iceland or back in Denmark!!! They told us that usually the ferry left here at the terminal but since this other cruise ship was here we had to had go back outside and down the dock. That's what we did but no boat in sight, plus it didn't look very inviting. We asked someone and he told us that the ferry was late because of engine problems. So we waited and finally got on board. Departure time? Who knows....

on our way there

We are now at Billund airport in Denmark. It is much bigger than expected, with free parking, wifi and a nice food court area. Unfortunately there are no ATMs past the security check point and we only have a handful of danish coins. The danish crown is equivalent to the faroese crown, but a separate currency. Supposedly the Faroese accept danish crowns but not the other way around. Hopefully there is an ATM at Vagar airport because we need to pay for our bus and ferry ticket.
There is a one hour time difference from here to the Faroes (UK time).
So far everything went well,  but we got up much too early!

Preliminary Info

As you may have heard, mom and I are going to the Faroe Islands to join Sea Shepherd's Operation Grindstop. 

Many of us have been following their activities in Taiji the past few years and the Faroe Islands are basically the Taiji of Europe.
Much and more can be read about the faroese Grind on their website: www.seashepherd.org/grindstop/
Because volunteers were needed and since the Faroes are not that far away from Germany we decided to go and help.

We were assigned to join the team on the island of Suduroy, which is the larger southern island. We will fly in from Billund in Denmark directly to Vagar Airport, take the bus to Torshavn and then the ferry to Suduroy.

We packed inflatable mattresses, sleeping bags, instant noodle soups and warm sweaters. So we should be all set!

Aunt Lettie proposed I should write a blog about this, so I hope I can manage keeping you posted because I will only take my kindle with me. I haven't tried typing lengthy texts with it yet because I get frustrated with autocorrect, especially when I have the German language setting on and write in English. But I suppose switching the setting would solve that ;)

14 volunteers were arrested recently because they were within the restricted area around the killing beach which is only for "authorized" people, which apparently includes children. They were released, but still, we hope to avoid such legal conflicts. If we should disappear, you know what happened!

ps: did anyone get the star trek reference in the domain name?