Litle Færøy

Hello again! I am back from the remote island in the middle of nowhere and want to share my experiences with you, which are just awesome. If I could I would go back immediately, but take all the volunteers with me too. But to start from the beginning: On Friday afternoon Artur, Barbara, Oleksandr and I took the bus to Måløy, a town at the coast, where the express boat towards Bergen left. We didn’t go that far, only till Krakhella and picked six other volunteers up on the way, but still it was fantastic to take the boat along the coast. We had sunny weather and could enjoy the incredible view aboard.

From Krakhella a bus brought us to Hardbakke, a little town in the community of Solund with around 250 inhabitants (I feel like I live in a city now). There we met Melanie, one of the volunteers who invited us. Together we took another boat (this time much smaller) to the island ‘Litle Færøy’, our final destination, where her mentor, Roar Moe, lives with his sheep. He and Wannes, the second volunteer from Hardbakke, welcomed us and showed us around, even if there wasn’t too much to show. Roar’s house, the boat houses, the outside toilet and the barn – and of course the sheep.

Before we built up our tent (a big one for all of us – you know, Norwegian gender equality…) we had dinner to recover from the long journey and regain enough strength to support Roar with the setup. Actually it wasn’t that complicated, but let’s just say it… ;) Afterwards Wannes drove us in a smaller boat to a neighboring island (without any population) and we went a bit up the hill to watch the beautiful sunset over the Norwegian Sea. Everything was covered in pink and orange light – a marvelous spectacle of nature.

Right behind our viewpoint was an entrance to a cave, and after some time everybody went inside and huddled together next to the fire Wannes lighted. Unfortunately we could not enjoy it for a long time because one girl went missing and we had to search her. It got darker and neither she nor we knew our way around. Finally, shortly before we wanted to alert the coast guards, she appeared behind a corner, safe and sound. Relieved we headed back and had some tea and coffee in the barn before we went to sleep.

On Saturday morning, after breakfast, half of the group assisted in pulling in the fishnets at sea while the others relaxed on the dock and took a sunbath. I joined them after wandering around Litle Færøy and taking some pictures of the beautiful island landscape. It is such a peaceful and quite place, like a little paradise, and definitely a Norwegian insider tip. No tourists would ever travel in these parts. It is too small to know about it and too far away from any city or town. But that makes it even more precious. For my part, I would go back any time.

After lunch I went fishing with a few others, which I never did before (firstly, because I don’t like fish and secondly, because fishing from the riverbank appears pretty boring to me), but from a boat at sea it was quite funny. Oleksandr was the most successful fisherman among us and caught eight fishes. Wannes cleaned them and threw the remains overboard, where they were caught by seagulls. I contributed to the work by shoveling the water out of the boat and preventing our feet from getting wet, which was appreciated too ;)

Back onshore we whiled away the time with some board games, till I went to the kitchen and helped preparing the dinner. I was a funny undertaking together with Melanie, who just wanted to cook, me, who just wanted to assist, Wannes, who interfered all the time (but in a well-meant way) and Oleksandr, who is a genius in the kitchen anyway. After conversations full of humorous banter we managed to finish and serve an appropriate meal. All’s well that ends well :)

Later I had a lesson on chopping wood, which is pretty exhausting, but quite satisfying. It feels somehow good to smash the wood. And we actually needed it for another campfire and the oven in our tent. Unfortunately it started raining and we had to move to the barn, where we played some games and talked all night long while eating chips, but still it was a very nice evening.

On Sunday morning we had a late breakfast and some, including me, went hiking on another neighboring island, from where we had a spectacular view over all the islands around as well as the Norwegian Sea. We were very lucky with the weather and could enjoy it with the sun shining on us while having a look around. Back on Litle Færøy we prepared lunch and cleaned everything up, both the tent and the barn, before we fed the sheep one last time and waited for the boat to pick us up and bring us back to Hardbakke. From there we went the same way back we came and fell in our beds in Nordfjordeid around 11.00 pm.

I was so tired after the weekend that I actually overslept my alarm clock this morning and woke up half an hour before the Norwegian exam, but I made it in time. Luckily! To oversleep is probably one of the worst excuses I could have made up for not showing up in time – but I narrowly escaped the disaster. How much of a disaster the Norwegian exam was I can’t tell you yet – I just can’t evaluate it at all. And the oral exam is still pending… We’ll see.

Ha det bra,

Alisa