"Gjógv to Sřrvágur" a Faroe Islands Travel Page by zweiblumen

Or the giant and his wife .. in Faroese Risin og Kellingin a pair of sea stacks off the island of Eysturoy. The story goes something like this "once upon a time a giant and his wife .. who also happened to be a witch, decided to drag the Faroe Islands to Iceland where they lived. They secured a rope around Kollur (the notch in the cliff in the photo) and both began to tug at it. They struggled all night but could not move the islands an inch. It appears they failed to notice the time, it took them so long struggling and failing to shift the Faroes that they were suddenly caught by the first rays of the rising sun and instantly turned to stone. That's what happened to giants and witches in daylight in those days .. oh well" True story.

I'll leave it up to you to decide as to which is the giant and which is his wife, because I don't know!

The village of Saksun on the island of Streymoy has a turf covered farmhouse which has been converted into a folk museum and is worth a visit. The village itself is very picturesque.

Above the banks of the lake Pollur.

Upon our return to Sřrvágur the plan was to take a trip over to the island of Mykines. I was looking forward to this because of the opportunity to get close up views of the puffins and other sea birds. Unfortunately the fickle Faroese weather scuppered our plans, the sea conditions were not safe for a landing on Mykines. Instead we booked a boat trip which was to take us out along the coast and back. It started well enough, we piled onto the boat which once we all safely aboard proceeded at a fair rate of knots towards the open sea. Suddenly there was a sickening crunch and the boat shuddered to a halt from 21kts to zero in what seemed but a split second. Some of us in the cabin were thrown across the floor (a few minor cuts and bruises sustained), it's a miracle that none of those outside were not thrown overboard. What had happened was that our port side propeller had snagged a rope which had not been marked by a buoy and had become entangled around the prop. We had to return to port limping home on one engine.

A diver was called up to free the rope from the propeller (see photo) but it had been damaged and so that was the end of our boat trip.