Well that's rather a blow to our plans: following their collapse and subsequent rescue by the Faroese government, Smyril Line have taken Scotland off the ports-of-call for their ferry to Ísland for 2009...
...so what was already looking to be rather a circuitous but actually quite exciting route from Lancashire to Ísland - driving North to Scrabster in Scotland to catch Smyril's ferry the Norrona to Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands and then sailing on to Seyðisfjörður in Ísland - has become absurdly circuitous and down-right unaffordable as the only way to Ísland by boat is now via the Harwich to Denmark ferry!!!
Yes indeed: instead of heading North to go, well, North, we would now have to head South to Suffolk, then North-East to Esbjerg in Denmark, then drive through Denmark to the port of Hanstholm to catch the Norrona ferry to Ísland
(assuming that the whim of the weather hasn't forced the Norrona to stop at Esbjerg instead as sometimes happens apparently, ha ha ha, you can just see it, can't you...) - all of which will add £900 quid or so for the Denmark ferry, but which in itself is a drop in the ocean compared to the doubling, yes, DOUBLING of our return tickets to Ísland itself as our Norrona fares will be from Hanstholm in Denmark instead of Scrabster in Scotland, i.e.twice as far...
...and that's not including the small matter of the £ pound's collapse against the € Euro already almost doubling our original costs...
...so what began to look potentially affordable from our savings for the past few years with a few months yet to go to reach the original target cost of approximately £1,200 for a family of 5 plus car and cabin for a return ticket Scotland to Ísland will now cost approximately £4,400 Hanstholm - Ísland with another £900 quid or so for the Suffolk - Denmark leg, with the small matter of camping or accomodation fees, food, and other such small considerations for the fortnight spent in Ísland itself.
Looks like this trip will be even more complicated to plan than we thought... we are currently enquiring whether there might be any smaller vessels sailing from Scotland to the Faroe Islands so we can at least cut out the Suffolk to Denmark to Faroes leg of the journey in order to board the Norrona in Tórshavn, even if that means leaving the car at home and having to confine ourselves in Ísland to exploring the Eastern fjords - anything from pedalo to bath-tub considered!!!
