Mykines: The Puffin Island
Interestingly enough, puffins spend the vast majority of the year living on the open ocean, away from land. They are monogamous birds, who return to the coastal cliffs where they were born, to lay a single egg, raise a single puffling, and then head back out to sea for the remainder of the year.
Living in Washington has spoiled me in more ways than I realize some times. For instance, I take for granted that Washington has the largest ferry system in the world; more people and cars are transported by boat in the state of Washington each year than anywhere else in the world. I’ve taken our ferries all over the greater Puget Sound Area, and with that experience, I’ve grown accustomed to the routine and consistency of the Washington State Ferries system. You drive up to a ferry landing; you pay a ticket agent for a ticket; you drive onto a boat that holds somewhere between 60-200 cars (1,000-2,500 people); and you hang out on a largely open-air boat for 20-90 minutes as you glide across the water to your destination. It turns out, that’s not what taking the ferry to Mykines is like.
After being beaten down by strong winds and rain in the Faroe Islands for days on end, we were excited about the idea that the weather forecast for our trip out to Mykines Island called for calm winds and sun - an exceptionally rare thing for the Faroe Islands, even in the summer. Mykines is the western-most island in the Faroes, and it’s one of few islands in the archipelago not accessible by car. To travel to the Faroes, you can either take a short ferry ride (45-60 minutes), or, if you’re lucky, you can take an even shorter 11-minute helicopter ride over to Mykines. Both tickets are highly sought-after, as Mykines is only open to the public for a few months each year, and many tourists travel to the Faroe Islands solely for a chance to visit Mykines - largely considered to be the most beautiful of the Faroe Islands, and home to over twenty species of sea birds (including the Atlantic Puffin).
When Natalie and I arrived at the ferry landing to catch our boat to Mykines, we were confused: there were certainly not several lanes to drive our car into, like we were accustomed to in Washington. No ticket booth. No signage of any kind, really. We were in what felt like a large shipping yard, and we could only see two boats, neither of which had us feeling like we were about to board a Washington State Ferry boat. Boat number one looked like an old fishing vessel that had clearly battled, and survived, several seasons on The Deadliest Catch. It had the sort of size that would inspire confidence in the open waters of the Atlantic Ocean, but it looked like it was well past its prime. Boat number two looked like the tug boat for boat number one: a fresh paint job that suggested it was well-funded, but with a size that looked like it was meant for taking ten of your friends out on a weekend cruise around the lake. Apparently, we would be sailing out on boat number two.
As we boarded the small boat, we were shocked at the number of people that were piling onto the deck with us. There were seemingly 40-50 people, most of whom were competing for seats outside on the deck, hoping to take photos during the boat ride to Mykines. Natalie and I were relegated to sitting below deck, though we figured we’d be much more comfortable (warmer and dryer) inside than out. As we walked into the indoor seating area, there were 8-10 bankettes, each shaped like a horseshoe around a table, each table with a small takeout box on it.
That’s cute, we thought, are those meant to be little garbage cans? Soon enough, we’d find out.
Mykines is a protected habitat for the 500,000 sea birds that call it home. Of the half a million birds that nest there each year, approximately half (125,000) pairs are Atlantic Puffins. Only 20,000 people are allowed to visit Mykines each year, and visitors can only hike the island during certain hours to minimize impact on the local bird population.
In Washington, before a ferry takes off, there’s a message over the intercom system of the vessel, welcoming passengers to the boat and letting them know any critical information they need to know. There was no such intercom call on the Jósup. Without any sort of word or announcement, the boat untied, and we were sailing out of the harbor for Mykines.
The boat ride to Mykines passes through some of the more scenic coastline in the Faroe Islands before making its way through the open waters of the Atlantic. I was hardly the only one with a camera ready to take advantage of the scenery while on the boat, and I periodically popped out to the deck to snap a few photos of the coastline before returning back down to the table where Natalie was sitting. Every so often, one of the boat’s crew would reach into a closet and pull out 4-5 more take-out boxes and disappear with them. Still no clue what those were being used for.
As we approached one of the iconic sea stacks off the coast of Vagar, the island we were leaving, I popped out of my seat to head back out to the deck to take a few photos. As I approached the back door of the boat, there was a girl who couldn’t have been older than 4 or 5 crawling on the floor. She looked like she’d been over-served at a bar: she was missing one of her boots, she was army crawling along the floor, and her dad was telling her to get up and get outside. And then, she started throwing up all over the floor.
Naturally, I stepped over her nearly lifeless body (add that to the list of reasons I don’t have kids), and I stepped out onto the deck to take my photo. Now, I like to think of myself as a fairly athletic, physically aware person. And, in a comically humbling moment, I almost got thrown overboard off the back of our boat while taking a photo that was completely unremarkable. Woah! I laughed, feeling very much aware of how close a call that was, and I crept my way back down below the deck to my seat.
Back at our table, I could see Natalie getting nauseous. Natalie typically struggles with motion sickness, and at this point, the front end of the boat was bobbing like it was on hydraulics. Despite the calm winds and the relatively clear skies, we were sailing into what seemed liked 8-10ft waves. As the boat accelerated into waves that were aimed straight for us, the boat would periodically launch off of the peak of a wave and nose dive into the water before climbing up the next wave. I was fine, until I wasn’t.
I started feeling hot. And then I was sweating. And then I was stripping. Tearing off my knit hat, and then my rain shell, and then my puffy jacket. Dripping sweat. Don’t throw up, don’t throw up. I hate throwing up. I’m literally dripping sweat: off my nose, down my elbows, on my chest. I’m in that place of limbo that no one ever wants to be in: on the edge of puking, holding onto hope that I’m going to keep it down, not understanding how the hell I got so seasick so quickly.
The boat launches off of another wave. Nosedives again. I’m bracing pressing my feat into the seat in front of me. My hands are clenched into a pole. My face is buried in my hands. My eyes are closed, because looking at how much we’re getting tossed around in the water is sure to send me over the edge. I grab one of the takeout boxes. Just in case.
I want off this ride! Natalie says. She’s doing way better than I am (what else is new?). I’m genuinely confused as to how she hasn’t thrown up. We’ve been on the boat for 60 minutes at this point, and the boat ride is supposed to only last 45-60 minutes total. I see no signs of a landing spot anytime soon. And now, in addition to the see-saw motion that the boat is doing as we crest each incoming wave, we’re getting hit with waves from the sides, too.
Up. Down. Left. Right. The boat rocks up, down, left, and then right. And somewhere between one of the left and rights, I grab a takeout box and throw up everything I ate for breakfast that morning, as I’m laughing and crying about how ridiculous this moment is, and how we’ll remember this boat ride for the rest of our lives.
Fifteen minutes later, we pull into a narrow gorge, and we’re stepping off the boat onto a small, makeshift dock: a block of concrete in an inlet, barely wide enough to fit our little tugboat. My whole body is still spinning in full-blown vertigo. We stumble up a set of stairs towards the village of Mykines, and we collapse onto a patch of grass on the side of the road. We spent an hour, laying in the grass like a couple of drunken idiots, trying to shake our sea legs. At one point, I laugh and say to Natalie, I think we’re mountain people. I don’t think we’re water people.
After an hour of sleeping in a patch of grass that was somewhere between an alleyway and someone’s front yard, we decide that we should go find food. There is a small cafe on Mykines, which when we walk into, feels more like you’ve stumbled into one of the fourteen locals’ living rooms. On a small whiteboard, it says that they have two homemade options: a beef sandwich (a hamburger, for you Americans out there), and fish soup.
Natalie looks at me and says, What do you think is going to feel best to throw up later? We laugh, neither one being able to stomach the idea that we’d be getting back on a boat in just a few hours. After splitting a scoop of ice cream (to try to get the taste of vomit out of our mouths), we opt for the fish soup. Natalie and I have been blown away by the quality of the seafood in the Faroes, and we’ve only seen about three cows during our week in the islands, so that feels like the right move.
The fish soup won’t be ready for another fifteen minutes, but it’s worth the wait, a young woman tells us. Ten minutes later, an older woman with gray hair walks in and says, fish soup? as she points at us. We say yes, and she carries in a couple of fresh baguettes and what looks a like a huge crock pot of soup. She ladles up a bowl of her homemade fish soup: a tomato broth with fish stock, leeks, onions, salmon, and cod, and she melts an herb butter onto a fresh baguette, and looks at us: Take. We each take one bite of the soup, immediately order a second bowl, and spend the next 45 minutes of our lives not saying anything intelligible to each other beyond This is so good, both temporarily not caring that we’ll probably be throwing up fish soup into a takeout box on our boat ride back home later that afternoon.
Mykines is a bucket list destination for photographers and birders (you know, people who are into birds… weirdos) because it’s a nesting ground for more than twenty different coastal bird species, and there are literally hundreds of thousands of them all over the island. Even as someone not initiated into the exclusive world of birding, it’s a pretty cool place. Aesthetically beautiful, sure, and surreal to be able to walk within a few feet of species of birds like the Atlantic Puffin, that just don’t exist in the Pacific Northwest.
After spending two hours trying to reacclimatize to being on solid ground, Natalie and I worked up the gumption to go for a hike around the coastal sea cliffs of Mykines. We were blown away at how close we were able to get to the puffins, and it was wild to see how teeming with life the whole island was. And, as a bonus, on our boat ride home, neither of us threw up. Praise be to Poseidon.
