Hirtshals to Seydisfjordur

Waking up in the bright sunlight I checked the time and was surprised to see it was 340 am! Because of that we were then packed up and on the road at 7 am in search of a coffee.

From there we went to the ferry dock at 8 am to see about 20 bikes already.

We were happy to see our friend Mike arriving from Bordeax.

They line you up outside the dock area until about 9 when you file thru the check in to the ferry holding area.

Once the last few cars have unloaded we finally got on. You ride up to the second level, we turned around inside the ship and then they lined us up along the back wall, while the rest were lined up at the front. There are no wheel chocks or teams of crew to help you as shown on the video on the Smyril line website, but we all managed to get the bikes strapped down.

Once your bike is settled for the 45 hour trip to Iceland its time for the skye bar. Dan made friends with Torsten a Faroe Man, who supplied them with Faore 7.2% beer, whale meat, and whale blubber (not good FYI).

Once we left the shelter of the coast of Norway there was a lot more rocking of the ship and you needed to hold the handrails, but the night’s sleep was not too bad. Lying down seemed to make the worst of the motion less nauseating. The only sights we saw were a few drill rigs in the North Sea.

Finally we sighted land the southern most islands of the Faroes.

We docked on farther west on the large island of Streymoy at the capital in Tórshavn, briefly to exchange passengers and vehicles before we headed onto Iceland.

Then we continued thru the island chain with their steep sided fjords and cliffs.

After another mostly calm night in the North Sea we readied for the 730 am arrival. We watched our approach from the sky deck. Braving the cold and howling wind we saw our first view of the snow covered shores of the island and wondered what we had gotten ourselves into.