THIS IS PART THREE OF
THE STORY
CLICK HERE FOR PART ONE

The boatmen drummed loudly on their hulls to increase the whales’ terror, driving them to the shore.

Any historic image of brave hungry fishermen rowing out to do battle with a potential Moby Dick were shattered.  I watched as young men jumped onto jet-skis to whizz right through the seething school of whales to finally panic them ashore.

As soon as the whales were close enough, the first row of men plunged into the surf holding heavy ropes. A metal hook was pushed into the first whale’s blow hole and a tug-of-war team hauled it flapping and hissing onto the sand.

I watched in a state of shock as appointed whale-killers attacked the stranded mammals with traditional wooden-handled whaling knives. 

Their so-called ‘skill’ is to cut the spinal cord by slicing behind the blowhole. In practise it means a lot of chopping and hacking.

One young whale thrashed and squirmed, trying to escape as the knifeman attacked. It took so long – perhaps five agonising minutes – that another man joined in until the tiny whale finally lay still.

I felt like I was in a war zone as whales were butchered all around me. I was witnessing one of the 21st-centuries most taboo acts - killing a whale.

The sea was soon foaming red while the larger whales, the mothers and fathers, waited offshore. They seemed to be desperately trying to rescue their youngsters being butchered on the beach.

“Are you Greenpeace?” shouted angry men threateningly as I realised I had to record as much as I could and pushed to the front of crowds now over a thousand strong.

There was a violent atmosphere more akin to a football match. I was warily watching the men with their razor-sharp killing knives.

One short-haired sturdy man in waders turned to me and shouted: “Go away and take pictures of killing chickens in your country!”  As whale blood splattered my trousers, all I could mumble in response was: “They don’t do it like this…”

I asked one young mum holding her pretty little blonde daughter’s hand: “Don’t you feel just a bit sorry for the whales?” She seemed confused

by the question. “No, of course not,” she shrugged. “It’s necessity.”

As the men wiped their knives clean, some smeared blood on their faces in a strange echo of a fox-hunting ritual. Meanwhile children played with dead whales. Toddlers jumped off their backs on to the sand, others pulled at the rubber fins.

Some bent down to poke eyes and mouths inquisitively. The children of the Faroe Islands certainly won’t grow up as squeamish as me.

For I felt numbed as the killing continued. I spent two hours getting a close-up view but it wasn’t till I reached my hotel later that I really felt the horror of what I’d seen.

The hotel manager was in celebratory mood explaining that his boat had been part of the killing flotilla. That meant he would get two shares of whale meat, one for him, one for the boat.

Across town the mood was similarly buoyant. Drunken men staggered between Torshavn’s surprisingly sophisticated bars. Some turned up in the biggest nightclub wielding a huge oar.

The next day on Torshavn harbourside the mood was coldly barbaric. Families arrived in expensive estate cars and off-roaders with saws to carve themselves lumps from the whale carcasses piles high.

A bulldozer scooped the remains into a disgusting tower of gore. I felt sick and turned away. Astonishingly that’s when bumped into an old friend from travel journalism.

Maurice Mullay, retired head of Shetland Tourist Board, was just passing through the Faroes. He’d spent much of his life representing  part of the UK with a proud whaling tradition too. But unlike the neighbouring Faroes, Shetland and Orkney ceased whaling long ago. 

Maurice shook his sadly as a dog sniffed around the body of a tiny baby whale, its eyes shut forever but still with its playful smile. Then he turned to me and said: "This must end. It's not tradition or culture. This is history."