Happy Independence Day America! If I was back home I'd be eating mounds of watermelon, drinking beer, and shooting illegal fireworks with my father at the neighbors, but I had the chance to fight for freedom of the whales so my family will have to celebrate America's freedom without me.
Tarah and I had to do an early airport drop off, which means less sleep following the night patrol, and also Tracy Chapman very early this morning. I love greeting and saying goodbye to the French team. xx (kiss kiss) xx both cheeks. I'm going to go home and be kissing all my friends without realizing it.
Today is my last day in the Faroes, which is bittersweet. On the one hand I'm heading home tomorrow to be with my family and friends, return to work, and return to my regular life. On the other I'm leaving my new family, my work here, and the life I want to live.
Jesse wants to take me for a spin on the boats today, she says she isn't letting me leave the island without a ride on the Thor. Tarah and Lukas have also been very secretive for the past few days so they're definitely up to something. It's cute.
Vagar today, I end in my favorite. We're determined to see puffins. Over two weeks in this place and everyone has seen puffins. Days and days of patrols and people coming back with puffin pictures and all i've seen is little black specks on the water. But not today, today Tarah and I are determined. We also have Lisa's niece with us. So it should be a nice quiet boring day to end my trip here.
We head to Sorvagur, to see Trollfinger and keep an eye on the water. While watching I get a glimpse of a black zodiak coming in, Is it the boat team? It didn't look like our boat.... I turn the van around and hand Tarah the binoculars. As we head down the bumpy trail we realize this isn't our boat at all, in fact its a completely black zodiak, filled with a crew wearing all black. Alarms start sounding in our heads. What did Denmark send over now. I speed Bertha up as we get closer to town and I head toward the harbor, but nothing.... the water is clear. Where did they go? We turn around and see a group of people near a cliff shouting down to the water below. So we park, get out of the water and start quietly climbing down and around the large building to try to get a clear view, and a picture, of our new zodiak friends. But they're no where to be seen. Blocked by a cave below.
Little did we know they had started sending in military forces as back up in case of a grind, we knew of the Navy ship that patrolled the seas just as we did, but more and more of these boats would appear over the next few weeks proving that they too could be everywhere.
I parked the van on the other side of the bay to get a clear view and hopefully a picture, but it never came. So we headed up the Boar to hopefully see our doggy friends and the beach. But as we were looking for the dogs Tarah received a phone call.
A pod.
Within a hundred and fifty yards of the killing beach, in Tournjavik, Which was over an hour from where we were. Our hearts sank. We were supposed to have a boring day today, today wasn't going to be boring at all.
The phone calls begin. To the leaders, to the other teams. We will get in formation and prepare. How many in the pod, is the pod moving, who else noticed the pod, are there boats coming?
Every time that phone rang I swear I grew more grey hair, or lost a chunk of my life.
An hour and a half later, the pod swam away and only two boats were seen nearby, no grind had been called so we decided to press on. We headed toward my favorite view, and one of our best vantage points. Just as we were settling in a car pulled up very close beside us, and did not seem happy. So we rolled down the windows and got prepared for another situation with a local.
But this time, it was different. He sat there for about an hour with us and told us about his family and how long they had lived on the island, he told us about the whaling and how he ate the whale meat but that his children didn't because they believed it was bad for them. He talked about how the other locals see us, and talk about having a grind, and what he thinks will happen to us if we were to intervene. It was the first honest conversation we had with a local where I didn't feel my life was in danger and that we could be honest back. We asked him about whale watching tours, or if anyone had thought about scuba diving in the area. He said it's better to not become close to the animals so it's not hard to kill them, and that he is a farmer and that he feels close with his sheep so it's hard for him to kill sheep.
As he went to drive away he said, "I hope you don't get into the water because you seem like good people and I wouldn't want you to get hurt" We bid him a good day and he left. But it was nice to hear that some of them do care about our lives, even if we are still working on getting them to care about the whales.
After all that excitement it was time to head back to the waterfall and to hopefully see some puffins. So off we went. Driving through the one way tunnel that I hate, and heading toward the beautiful hideaway that I love.
We arrive and the sheep are playing and enjoying their sunshine day, it's windy as usual and cold but it doesn't matter because the view is spectacular.
We head towards the back of the cliff where the staircase is, and the cable. Not so long ago there wasn't a tunnel into the other towns, so they would use a cable and a trolley to get down to the water and take a boat into the other town to get food and supplies. I'm not going to lie to you, I would never get on that trolley.
But there wasn't any puffins down there either. So we headed back up! Where could they be???
They were hiding on the other side of the waterfall! We had finally found them!
Look how cute they are!!
After we saw them I ventured to the top of the waterfall, I had to see where the water came from the caused it to be so powerful.
Tarah and me
