ISLAND FIELD TRIP

| Randøya, Kristiansand |

31.05.21 – 02.06.21

Last trip of the semester, shorter than it was planned due to covid issues, but still amazing and soooo good. It is quite sentimental to write this last reflection since these last days/weeks are being with regard to emotions intense. From Monday to Wednesday, two nights sleeping in an island 20’ far from Kristiansand called Randøya, carrying out 4 main activities: kayaking, biology, rowing and motor boats.

The four main activities were planned to do in small groups of 6. As I may have said in other occasions, six persons is the perfect number of people to work together as a group, and definitely it worked. For instance in kayaking, we could split the group considering what people wanted to do, whether going to open water or staying in safety areas waiting for the others. As well as while doing motor boats, where two of our members had a license of driving boats so fit perfectly to divide the group in two with one “experienced” girl in each of them; however, the boats were not working at all and we had some problems to turn on some of them, that’s why we end up changing plans and doing the activity with one only boat.

Biology was much better than I expected and so interesting. We combined sea animals with plants. First we tried to find all kinds of living beings in the water, specially animals like muscles, oysters, shells, snails and crabs; then we analysed them and cooked and ate some of them (they tasted soooooo good; best instant snack of the semester for sure!). Then, we went for a walk around that area and we stopped every time the professor found an interesting plant, which we could probably taste. We ended that session eating many wild green stuff, we even took more plants to add them in our dinner.

Apart from kayaking, the rest of the activities were mostly new for me, specially rowing, which I could feel all my back muscles afterwards, meaning that was a new way of exercising my body. However, in kayaking we practice the capsizing and rescuing, which was so funny. I capsized it 3 times, 2 on purpose and one by accident (cool though). Then we practised two types of rescuing, the main difference between them is the way the rescuer holds the kayak, can be just holding it by being beside the other boat, or can be putting the kayak on top of the rescuer’s one forming an X with both boats, then is super stable. Apart from capsizing we learnt some basic kayak skills such as to push-pull at the same time (each arm does one action), to have the higher hand opened while pushing, and to have both hands in the same side once we are finishind the action of rowing to proof that we are rotating our upper body.

What we also had the chance to see was the old military base in this island, we could get in. Was so impressing, it seemed like a movie, although the material and things there were a mixture of different periods of time. We were so lucky to get in there, mainly because the island itself is quite exclusive and also because you can only visit that with a guide.

Although the island was equipped with dormitories we decided to sleep outside both nights since the weather conditions were good and actually we really wanted to enjoy the last nights outside together. We were free to go wherever and with whoever we wanted, so that’s what we did; a great number of people had hammocks and they all sleep one on top of each other which looked pretty cool (specially for the one who was sleeping on the highest part), then some also chose to sleep in the beds, and we went directly to a good spot founded the morning before, which had awesome views (both for sunset and sunrise) but was a bit windy even though the wind was nice since the temperature was around 12ºC.

This trip was useful for keep creating strong bonds with the people I was close the most, spending good and valuable time with them, good vibes and a lot of laughs. Similarly, it was the last trip outside in Norway, even more special because it was in an very small island so you can imagine the landscape and views. Very thankful for all of this! <3