26. – 29. May

The group was split in half because of the easier survey of the group and the lack of equipment. The trip extended our basic skills from the starting course at Randoya.

26. May

Day tour on the local river Otra with lessons about

• basic turning strokes,

• deep and shallow water rescue before tipping and

• T-rescue

but also enough time to try the learned skills.

27. & 28. May

Overnight trip with the Kayaks: We started in Hellevika (where we have already been with the Russ) and loaded the Kayaks with our sleeping gear, changing clothes and food and water for 2 days. Then we paddled for a few hours in the sea along the coast, through islands and improved our orientating and leadership skills on the water until we reached

the nice little island Kappeloya, where we would stay the night. So we unloaded the kayaks and set up our tents/tarp shelters. My group made a really nice shelter out of a professional igloo tarp and a normal tarp in front, fixed on a rope between trees. So it looked a bit like a real tent with pretent. Unfortunately the normal tarp was not waterproof any more because it had a damaged surface from using it on the bottom of stony ground. But we realized it not until the rain in the night. Luckily the day before was really sunny that we could enjoy the day, improve our kayaking abilities and discover the island.

So it was not too bad that it rained on the next morning, when we had to pack our stuff and kayak back to Hellevika with a small detour around another island. On this day the sea was rougher that we had bigger waves to deal with. On the one hand was it fun to keep the

balance in the shaking water and surf a bit on the waves, but on the other hand can it be really dangerous if somebody capsizes with nobody around. Unfortunately one of our group capsized. But because of our new skills we knew what to do and could bring her quickly back into the kayak. After a few more minutes we also arrived our goal so that the capsized person could get dry again – and the whole group too (wet because of the rain and sprayed water while paddleing). It was a nice trip with changing conditions and a lot of kayaking and group leading learning outcome.

29. May
As we could not sail on Randoya, Len promised us to do it another time – and this time was today. At the beginning Len teached us a bit about the theory of sailing before we could move the ‘small’ katamarans into the water, set the sails and try it with our partner on our own. Of course it took a while to get the feeling of the right steering and the perfect set sail. But after a while it worked quite well, that we could also try the tacking against the wind. Luckily the conditions were apart from the small hail storm quite good that we had enough wind to move but not to much to tip over. One of the catamarans tipped over in the hail storm! Luckily the catamaran have a boye on top of the mast that the mast does not go unter the water. The crew of this boat had to climb on the hull in the air and lean back to pull the catamaran to neutral position. I could not really watch it as I was busy to not tip over by myself, but it looked like they did a good job. In the end it was one of the best activities in the whole semester for me: I had a lot of fun and really enjoyed the time gaining speed with the catamaran, crashing through the waves and making a nice turns!

 

Learning outcome

Apart from the still imroving group leading and orienteering skills I also discovered, that it is really important to check your equipment prepared for the weather (leaking tarp). It was not too bad this time as we just stayed for one night. But if we had to stay for another, some of our shelter would have had a wet sleeping bag, which you really try to avoid, especially when the rainy weather also stays during the day, that you do not have a possibility to get it dry again…
Another important thing is to stay close together while kayaking, at least in smaller groups of 3 people, that if somebody capsizes, you can get him quickly out of the (cold) water and back to the kayak. That means also for the leader to have an eye on the last person (arranged before, should not be the weakest of the group) and keep the group together.
I also experienced the beginning of the last group development phase: performing and beginning of adjourning. At the moment I have the feeling that we all have really good contact to (mostly) all of our group members and really try to enjoy the last weeks before we will all go different paths. It is really nice to be so good with so many people but you also know in the back of your mind that it will make it even harder to split up! That is how a temporary group works…