The atmosphere onboard our Atlantic Airways flight became more excited as we approached Vagar Airport on the island of Vagar in the Faroe Islands. Most of the people on the plane were tourists or native Faroese returning home for a visit and we were all looking forward to getting to the islands.
We started our descent from the bright, clear-blue skies, through the clouds and into…fog. Thick, enveloping fog that made it impossible to see anything below. The pilot announced that we would try to land but, if the visibility wasn’t good enough, we would go back up and circle around to try again. Down, down, down we went and suddenly I caught sight of a light at the runway’s end. OK, we’re down, I figured. But, no, with a roar of the engines up we went! The pilot came back on the speaker saying we would do a circle around the island and make a second approach. “After all”, he said, “the weather changes every 10 minutes here! The wind is due to shift and sweep the fog out to sea. This is very common here, no need to worry.”
He was true to his word, and our second landing was made in clear skies, although it was raining by the time we had taxied to the terminal and were disembarking. There’s that rapid weather change again, which I would quickly learn was indeed very common here! Read More >
