Our Randøya coastal field trip lastet all together 2.5 days and was organized by Uni. Therefore, the accomodation, gear/equipmenttransport and our transport was planned beforehand, so we did not have to think about those things.

For this trip, just the food and packing was on us, which we did in the original tentgroups from the beginning. Since we (as a tentgroup) spent much time together and had already done a few overnights, the preperations went really smooth, we knew what everybody liked and did not like.

The departureday, we first took a bus to Kongshavn. There, we packed everything on a motorboat which carried half the group to the island where we would stay the next 2 days, while the other half of the group got changed into wetsuits and paddled the kayaks out to the island. The kayaking was nice, but I was surprised how unstable I felt at first. We just had had one day of the kayakintroduction in Kristiansand, the second day got cancelled due to Quarantine. After a short while, I got the feeling for the kayak back and could paddle more straight. Not long after, we arrived at the Island and moved into the living houses. The plan was to spend the next two days on the island, having 2 sessions of water and naturerelated lectures a day and plenty of time inbetween to eat, socialise and to practice what we learned.

In the end, we ate all together and the tentgroups were just for cooking, which was really different to the other trips. In addition, all of us where on a trip together for the first time, meeting for breakfast, lunch and dinner and even though we have done trips all together, it felt different this time. For the lectures, we were organized in four smaller groups, made by Len. Even though we have studied the whole semester together, I still have not been in a group with some of my groupmembers, so it was refreshing to mingle again and get to know each other better. Goupdynamicswise, we took care of each other and helped each other out if needed. Since our activities were planned by different teachers who led us through the activities, it was not as easy as in a self organized trip to observe more facets of the groupdynamics, also cause we did not get pushed out of our comfortzone. All together, I had the impression we were all motivated to learn and got along well, even though we were mixed in a group of people we were not super close with.

The lectures were fun and taught me a lot, so now I know how much technical knowledge there has to be to maintain a motorboat, how difficult it can be to get the fuel in the motor without spilling it and how to stear a motorbike. Further, we studied seamaps and learned, what the features mean, tried ourselves in navigation on the sea and had fun „parking“ the boat. In biology, we learned much about our sourroundings, had a very passionate teacher and collected our own seafood to eat it all together in the end. I learned how to row a boat and how to fish, cought a fish and later, how to filet it and prepare it for dinner. Already an awesom experience, on top we got shown spots to pick herbs, which we could add to the fish, which we ate all together the last night.Using the features on the island, we had a history excursion, discovering the pilotroom, tunnels and fireplatforms built during the Cold War. Further, I experienced how strong wind can be and how much of a problem it can get while kayaking, how important it is to use the surroundings (islands/hills) to escape the wind, learned the technique oft he forward and sweapstroke and how to rescue a kayak after capsizing.

During the whole time, the weather was  beautiful and we slept spontaneously outside for both nights, mingling with other people than our small groups. The first night, we build up a hammmock camp, welcoming everybody who wanted to join and had 6 hammocks attached to 4 trees, which was fun and another new experience. The second night, we slept at one of the beautiful viewpoints of the island, enjoying the sunrise and good view in the morning.

Even though many mosquitos flew around in the evening, the wind picked up especially in the second night and helped keeping the mosquitos away.

The last morning, we cleaned everything in small groups, which we organized the night before. The cleaning was well organized and therefore, was done fast. After lunch, we walked to the northern tip of the island to take a water taxi back to the mainland, since the motorbaots had troubles working well during our stay.

All together, I enjoyed the trip, especially the focus on water and the whole group being together.