Sandvík is the northernmost village on Suðuroy, reached through an old road tunnel that is the only way in. About a hundred people live here. As the name suggests, it has a large sandy beach — a rarity in the Faroes.
The village has an outsized place in Faroese history. A monument near Sigmundsgjógv marks where the Viking chieftain Sigmundur Brestisson came ashore around the year 1000, having escaped his enemies by swimming all the way from the island of Skúvoy. He brought Christianity to the Faroes but was killed on this beach by the local farmer Torgrímur Illi — "the Mean Torgrim." Two other monuments stand in the village: one for the writer Martin Joensen, and one for the men lost in the 1915 Skaðagrindin boat disaster.
The local museum is housed in Húsið uttan Ánna ("the House East by the River"), a turf-roofed wooden house built in 1866 and painted black and white. It is a good example of traditional Faroese building.