“Do you see that big rock over there?” the hotel reception manager gestured out into the remarkably sunny day on the northern tip of Denmark. “That’s where the bus normally stops.” I nodded to indicate my understanding — my eyesight being what it is — and crossed the road to wait near that said rock, which looked nothing like a bus stop.
The waiting game began.
My brain started doing that thing where it cycles through increasingly apocalyptic scenarios — Should’ve gotten a taxi. There definitely won’t be a bus. I wonder how long it takes to walk to the terminal. Do I start hitchhiking now?
These thoughts only ramped up as the bus’s alleged departure time came and went. Ten minutes later, I had pretty much accepted missing the ferry and becoming a permanent resident of Hirtshals — and then I saw it: a huge bus materialising out of a turn a few streets below, casually backing up towards no one else but me standing near that “rock.”
When it stopped, it was completely empty. “Norröna?” asked the bus driver in Danish.
What if?
Let me explain. Sitting in a half-empty ferry terminal beside MS Norröna — or Norræna in Icelandic — I was similarly confused about how and why I’d ended up here. I think it involved several pints with coworkers, someone saying “What if,” and “Who in their right mind would take the last ship to Iceland?” I’m pretty sure my publisher rambled on about something about Haustskip — a concept from some medieval novel about the final ship of the year that only he seemed to understand — and me agreeing to this adventure with a dry “I can do it,” thinking I’d be a small step closer to great adventurers like Thor Heyerdahl, whose journeys fuelled my imagination growing up.
The task at hand? Fly to Copenhagen, then Aalborg, take a bus, multiple trains, crash in Hirtshals for a night, catch another bus, and finally sail for 66 hours to Seyðisfjörður.
The ferry company’s staff tried their best to steer me toward a summer booking. I stubbornly insisted on this particular trip: their last of the season.
On November 17, I boarded the Norræna — the largest ferry operated by Faroese company Smyril Line running between Denmark, the Faroe Islands and Iceland. In summer, she makes twice-weekly trips from Hirtshals to Tórshavn and weekly voyages on to Seyðisfjörður, before suspending the Iceland route until spring while maintaining weekly service to the Faroes through winter.
It’s the biggest ship I’ve ever been on — capable of carrying 1,482 passengers, 118 crew members and about 800 cars. The ship boasts over 300 cabins — from fancy suites to spartan hostel-like couchettes — though in November, only a fraction of them are occupied, with just 300 passengers aboard.
Welcome aboard
During summer, Norræna operates more like a cruise ship, complete with all the expected amenities. My travel companion and I were generously accommodated in two separate Nordic Deluxe cabins on Deck 8. Each cabin was furnished with a double bed, a pull-out bed for potential guests, a TV, a table with chairs, an en suite bathroom, and a minibar stocked with snacks and a selection of drinks. The real highlight was the panoramic window with its cosy nook — an ideal spot for soaking in the endless views. Each of the 34 Nordic Deluxe cabins is named after a bird, with mine dedicated to the Knópsvanur — the Mute Swan in English.
Barely 20 minutes after settling in, my name was announced through the PA system, summoning me to reception. Curious, I made my way there, only to be offered even more snacks — a delightfully unexpected touch.
A stroll through Norræna’s corridors — in service since 2003 — felt like a nostalgic journey back in time. While the ship has seen updates over the years, the early 2000s vibe remains, thanks to its wood-panelled walls and carpeted floors, reminiscent of a hotel frozen in that era.
As the ship departed the port of Hirshals and ploughed into the North Sea, the first night was about looking behind every corner, trying to navigate the maze of corridors and observing the mix of characters that gathered on board. I delayed going to bed, dreading the challenge of falling asleep on a vessel slicing through the waves at half-speed.
When I finally tucked myself into the crisp boat-hotel bedsheets, I realised I’d made the mistake of not closing the bathroom door. With each roll of the ship, it creaked open, only to slam shut with a sharp bang as we tipped into the next wave. I lay there for a while, listening to the door’s unsettling rhythm, procrastinating the inevitable moment I’d have to get up and deal with it. When I finally stood to close the damned thing, I noticed it was well past 1:00 and decided to take a stroll.
Similar to a sleeper train, there’s a constant noise on a ship that never quite goes away. On a train, the source is obvious — the wheels on the tracks. On a ship, though, it’s harder to locate. Is it the hull slicing through the waves? The wind whistling through the ship’s corridors? The rhythmic hum of the engine? Or could it be the sound of someone slowly losing their mind?
After a walk through the empty hallways and a brief, unsuccessful attempt at stargazing on deck, I returned to my cabin and preemptively took a seasickness pill. Then I lay in bed, eyes wide open, for what felt like an eternity. As it turns out, I don’t really like being rocked to sleep.
Deck 10: People-watching
The crown jewel of the ferry, in my opinion, was Deck 10, called Laterna Magica. Located thirty metres above sea level, it houses a bar and a café offering pastries and a selection of drinks, but most came for the view. Part observation deck, Laterna Magica featured comfy couches and armchairs, allowing passengers to watch the sea at any time of day. The bar closed before midnight, but there were always a few passengers scattered across the deck whenever I visited — five men sitting in silence, gazing at the sky as it turned dark grey; a father-son duo playing Uno; a lone traveller sipping a beer while listening to something, perhaps a podcast, through large headphones. My fellow passengers seemed content to let time idle away, watching the horizon sway ahead of us, while a sea gannet raced alongside the ship.
Though I hoped to encounter a cast of quirky characters, each story I heard was disappointingly dry. See, I’d imagined meeting fellow romantic souls — people drawn to endless horizons and shifting seascapes, birdwatchers spending hours on deck telling off anyone who dared to mistake a gannet for a seagull, or at least an aerophobe or two choosing the long way home due to their fear of flying. In reality, when asked why they were on this late season sailing, my fellow passengers had only mundane responses to offer.
“What do you mean ‘why I’m on this ferry?’ I’m going home,” said one passenger as if I were a customs officer about to deny him entry for looking suspicious. “I want my car with me.”
Travelling between Denmark and the Faroe Islands, this passenger usually opts to fly and rent a car in Denmark. “It’s 36 hours to sail and four hours to fly from my house in Tórshavn to my residence in Denmark. That’s why I fly in the summer. It’s three days of my vacation,” he explains with a weary smile.
“It’s totally relaxing. I’m not bored — I download lots of films. I have everything on my iPad. That’s my cinema,” he says. “It’s the first time I travel alone, that’s because my wife died last year.”
I asked how the trip compares to when he used to travel with her. “Not so noisy,” he says, half-smiling, half-serious. “In about an hour or two I want to have a drink,” he looked at his watch confirming his evening plans were set in stone.
Meanwhile, at a nearby table, Birnir and his girlfriend celebrated their second consecutive win in the pub quiz. “We are going to Iceland,” said Birnir, sharing the reason for taking the ferry. “We live in Norway, but both of us are from Iceland. I have a car with Icelandic number plates, so I needed to get back to Iceland to sell it.”
The couple had taken a quick ferry from Norway to Denmark and were continuing their journey from there. “I love it — it’s like travelling 20 years in time,” they shared their impressions of the trip. “I like the rocking boat on the waves. We’ve mostly just been taking naps.”
In between relaxed times on the boat, the couple tasted a few of the Faroese beers available on board, but naps interfered with other plans. “We wanted to try out the fancy restaurant tonight and get some steaks, but we took a nap and overslept, so now we’re just just getting something else.”
One night, I stumbled across someone who, like me, was travelling all the way to Seyðisfjörður without a car. Philipp, 24, from Germany, was off to some adventures. “I finished my studies last summer, so now I’m travelling around, doing a bit of a gap year, hoping to see Iceland again,” he said. “I’ve been travelling for three weeks now across Europe.”
With typical German pragmatism, Philipp admitted that the ferry seemed like better value for money. “I’ve flown there before. I’ve already seen that,” he said. “Also, I’m travelling with quite a lot of baggage — a big backpack and a small one.” Philipp had booked a bed in the couchette section on the ferry which cost him around EUR 250. “A flight is similarly expensive. I thought, why not check out the ferry and have some nice experience out of it?”
“There are beds for four people, but I’m the only one in there,” he continued. “Man, this is the third ship I’ve taken on my trip and so far every single one has been the same — empty, because no one wants to travel in winter.”
Philipp smiled, the grin of a seasoned budget traveller, as he reminisced about his previous ferry crossings from Gdansk to Stockholm and from Gothenburg to Frederikshavn, “I’ve paid for the minimum amount that you can get on the ship and got my own room,” he said proudly.
On Norræna, he got a ticket with a buffet breakfast included, “I’ve brought food for everything else. So I’m going to breakfast, eating as much as I can, and then in the evening, I eat something else that I brought,” he explained.
After chatting for a while, Philipp added, “I think this is the longest I’d ever take a ship.” His days have been filled with reading, walking around and taking pictures, but he seemed like running out of options. “I thought about taking a ship to the United States one day, but that one’s a week and a half. It’s fun, but after two days, you’ve seen everything and the waves are going to be even worse. I don’t know if I’d like to do that. Also, it’s much more expensive — every day on a ship you spend between 50 and 100 EUR.”
That same night, while sipping a beer before bed, I spotted a familiar face — Faroese-Icelandic musician ASA, whom I’d encountered just a month earlier at Skrapt Festival in Tórshavn, was performing a cover at one of Norræna’s bars. I waited until her set was cut short, the waves too high to keep her seated on a tall stool, before introducing myself. Ása Helena Brynjarsdóttir is a house musician on board, having been recommended to join the ferry’s entertainment lineup. Since March of last year, she’d been spending a few weeks per year cruising between the three countries.
While it’s hard to be away from home, Ása told me she loves working on the ship. She’s made good friends with the crew, and since some of them are musicians too, they often jam together. “Last night, I played with Paula from Poland, who works in housekeeping. She’s an excellent cello player.”
“I’m quite crafty with time,” Ása said when I asked if it ever gets boring. “I bring enough hobbies on board. I like to write, read and make it to all the meals. There’s a routine — morning, afternoon and dinner coffee. In the early afternoon, I’ll sit up here, drinking tea, maybe sketching or writing. I play bingo. Sometimes, I go to the sauna.”
As we talked, Birnir, who I met earlier, asked to borrow Ása’s guitar and played a few songs, the last being Fleetwood Mac’s legendary “Landslide.” One of the passengers in the audience watched him in awe. “Man, it’s beautiful. Did you write it yourself?” he asked.
All hands on deck
Like some deranged cruise critic, I set about testing every amenity this floating entertainment complex has to offer. The sauna, tucked away on the ship’s lower decks, was just what I needed. There, I met two Faroese women returning home after visiting their children in Jutland. The pool was closed — something about excessive water splashing around during rough seas I was later told. The hot tubs promised romance under the stars but delivered something closer to endurance training. I ended up in the tub with the best view, which, of course, meant it wasn’t sheltered from the wind. Picture me, shivering in tepid water while wearing a hat for 15 long minutes. The onboard cinema tried its best with a new Beetlejuice screening, but the combination of swaying screen and rolling waves sent me stumbling in search of solid ground (or whatever passes for it in the middle of the ocean). Perhaps all of this would have been more enjoyable in the summer.
The unspoken intensity of ferry bingo caught me off guard. At first, I considered joining — how complicated could bingo be? Then I saw them: a room full of grey-haired Faroese warriors, armed with something called “bingo daubers” (a term I now know thanks to Google) — special highlighters designed to save time once a number is called. These folks weren’t just playing — they seemed to have strategy. The most impressive were the multitaskers — knitting at what can only be described as Olympic speed while maintaining full bingo alertness. It was mesmerising, like watching a craft circle that’s somehow morphed into a high stakes gambling ring.
Night after night, I returned to Norræna’s pub quizzes — a fun escape from the monotony of sea life. The ship might have been quiet, with most passengers tucked away in their cabins, but the moment the “pub quiz” announcement crackled over the PA system, Deck 10 would spring to life. Families, couples, groups of friends and even the bartender would gather, along with those who’d claim “I’m not really playing” while shouting out answers to prove their mettle.
Questions appeared on the screen in a multilingual display of Faroese, Danish, English and German, while our quiz host asked everything from “Which iconic rock band released The Dark Side of the Moon in 1973?” to “Where was Freddie Mercury born?” and “How many F1 titles does Lewis Hamilton have?” It took me back to my student days, when cheap beer and trivia nights were our go-to entertainment. On the final night, I even managed to snag third place and win a drink — some random Faroese pilsner.
Before boarding the Norræna, I romanticised sea travel in my mind, imagining I’d spend all my time disconnected from the world reading, walking up and down the ship’s various decks to keep my step count up and journalling while gazing out at the endless blue horizon. Reality proved that reading on board made me desperately dizzy and, as we neared Iceland, even walking became uncomfortable — every step required gripping the nearest handrail or banister.
Approaching Iceland, the vessel transformed more and more into a cacophony of rattling dinnerware. I watched helplessly as an elderly passenger lost his footing, his buffet plate flying off with a splash of impromptu Pollock. The Christmas tree on the top deck couldn’t quite hold its ground either, eventually succumbing to the whims of the North Atlantic.
Clapping along with the Faroese
One particular bunch aboard were the “Faroese accordion players,” though most called them “harmonica players” thanks to the Danish/Faroese word harmonika. It felt like stumbling upon a secret club I had no idea existed.
“130 passengers on this trip are a Faroese group,” bartender Fie told me one evening. “They have the other bar for themselves,” she added with a sigh of relief. Her tone sparked my curiosity.
Fie, being Danish, doesn’t speak fluent Faroese, despite the languages being quite similar. “I had some rough times with various people when I was new here because I didn’t know anything about the language. I do now and speak a little bit, but it’s still very sad. Just because the ferry is Faroese, it doesn’t really have to be all about them, you know? People didn’t want to be served by me because I didn’t really get the first word they were saying. I thought that’s just so rude,” Fie confessed.
“They bring lots of musicians with them,” she continued, “so they dance and sing all night long.”
Intrigued, I decided to check out the notorious other bar, quickly realising that blending in wasn’t going to happen. The room was packed with tipsy, elderly Faroese belting out songs to a band of accordion and guitar players. Someone handed me a brochure with lyrics to follow along, but any attempt to strike up a conversation between their spirited singing and enthusiastic clapping proved unsuccessful. This part of the trip, lively as it was, remained a mystery to me.
“This is what you might call a theme trip for the Faroese,” cruise host Kristian later explained. “I’m not Faroese myself, but I’ve been told there’s an unusually high number of musicians in the Faroe Islands compared to the population. We host a trip like this every year.”
Of the group, only about 20 are actual musicians, Kristian noted, but each could bring along a guest. The rest are family, neighbours, or fans tagging along for the fun. Such theme trips are nothing new, Kristian added. “We’d recently had a board game cruise and sometimes we do a crime cruise — true crime mystery-solving and all that.”
Yearning for terra firma
Time at sea moves to its own rhythm, slower and more deliberate than life on land. Your existence begins to revolve around meal times — a lesson I learned the hard way when I showed up past 10:00 for breakfast only to find locked doors. The handful of restaurants and cafes operated on strict schedules due to the low season, while the small duty-free shop offered little consolation, stocking mostly snacks and candy. More than once, I found myself dreaming of a simple cup of instant noodles.
My ferry routine evolved into hours of ocean-watching, observing how the waters transformed with the weather — from bright marine blue as we left Denmark to an ominous grey as we battled through rain and wind further north. Even the smallest changes on the horizon brought excitement, be it the stark silhouettes of UK oil rigs piercing the endless blue.
At around 15:00 ship time on Monday (Norræna runs on Faroese time), the Shetland Islands — Scotland’s northernmost archipelago — came into view. Despite the wind nearly slamming the door in my face, I ventured onto the deck, finally finding use for my binoculars. There they stood: tiny, snow-covered islands breaking the monotony of sea and sky. The weather briefly cleared as we passed, painting pink streaks across the sunset sky.
It felt like just a moment passed since the islands appeared on the horizon before they had vanished again, and I wondered how many sailors in times of yore passed by unknown lands without the chance to dock. I found myself longing for land.
Bridge watch
“I think we will hurry up to Iceland,” Captain Petur av Vollanum told me as we met on the bridge.
It’s been 13 years since he became the captain of Norræna, but his seafaring career began much earlier. Starting as a young boy training to be a fisherman, he went on to study further, sailing as a mate and skipper before becoming a Maersk captain on what was at that time the largest container ship in the world.
When I asked what drew him to a life at sea, Petur offered a pragmatic smile. “That’s my life and my job. I normally spend four weeks here and then have four weeks off — so, actually I’m working only half a year.”
Weather dictates everything aboard Norræna, the captain explained. “We have to plan everything around the weather — either we are ahead of the weather or behind the weather,” he said, showing me navigation equipment that predicts not just weather patterns but wave heights. He recalled the weather from just last week to imprint just how serious it could be. “When we arrived, there were hurricanes in Iceland. We waited almost 24 hours outside the fjord in Seyðisfjörður, with the wind speeds hitting 56 metres per second. It can be very dangerous — the high mountains make it hard to predict when a windcast is coming and sometimes it comes from the side, pushing the boat off. If a rope breaks, we’ve got problems.”
The ship operates with four rotating navigators — the captain and three mates. The captain’s job isn’t to steer the wheel 24/7 — similar to airplanes, there’s autopilot. “I make the manoeuvring in the harbours, between the islands and all that,” Petur explains. The rest of the day is typically spent on the bridge, where he’s in charge of charting the course and overseeing the voyage plan.
The seasonal pause in Norræna’s Iceland routes, the captain explained, is simple economics. “It’s not very popular with passengers and the cargo is also very limited. It doesn’t make sense,” Petur said. “We have other cargo ships sailing to Iceland. They can manage that.”
“Want to see how I wash windows?” he asked suddenly, a boyish grin spreading across his weathered face. The panoramic bridge window cleaner brought out the child in both of us — though I’m still not sure who was more amused by the demonstration.
The weather worsened and, by the time I returned to my cabin, the captain had announced a new schedule — we’d arrive in Tórshavn at 6:00 and depart by 8:00, leaving just an hour to venture onto land instead of the promised four. Though disappointed by the brevity of the visit, I managed to walk around the snow-dusted harbour of this tiny capital at dawn, watching cargo trucks roll one by one from the ship’s belly. Next stop: Iceland.
The very last leg
Most of the ship’s passengers disembarked at Tórshavn, likely heading to the comfort of their beds within 15 minutes or so. I said my goodbyes to musician Ása and some of the friendly Faroese crew members, who were being replaced by an equally welcoming bunch for the onward journey. While the ship lingered in Tórshavn’s harbour, I finally managed to fall into a proper sleep, missing much of the view as Captain Petur manoeuvred between narrow mountains and fjords.
Out of the 82 passengers still aboard, I saw no more than five during the day — most of them lounging on the comfy couches of Deck 10. German traveller Philipp listened to my advice for hitchhiking a ride to Reykjavík and came to boast that while in the sauna he scored a lift from someone returning from a business trip in mainland Europe. Meanwhile, the ship rocked as waves climbed between six and eight metres high. Everyone reassured me this was as bad as it gets, but cruise host Kristian casually mentioned he’d once sailed through 12-metre waves, when passengers were ordered to stay in bed.
Heading farther north, the ship began to move more violently, glass clinking and rattling as it surged forward and back. The movement became more pronounced and, with each wave, I found myself longing to be back home. I had my last dinner alone at Nóatún bistro, where my pizza slid up and down the table, playing a stubborn game of hard-to-catch, as the almost empty vessel made its way to Seyðisfjörður. Around 1:00, the constant rocking finally stopped. Captain Petur kept his promise and we arrived in Iceland nearly seven hours ahead of schedule. I heard that the customs officers had driven all the way from Reykjavík, which explained why we weren’t allowed to disembark until the morning.
Stepping off Norræna, I caught some of them looking at me with a raised brow, wondering why I hadn’t just flown home to Reykjavík. Outside, the picturesque East coast town was buried by a snowstorm and though my journey home wasn’t quite finished, that’s a story for another time.
Back on land, I remembered something a fellow passenger had said the night before, finishing his beer as the bar was closing: “You don’t go to Iceland unless you have to.”
At least, not in winter. And certainly not by sea.
But like every other fool I met on this ferry, I’d probably do it again.
Trip provided by Smyril Line. Book your ferry crossing at: smyril-line.com
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