Activity 1- kayaking

Activity 2- shallow water biology

Activity 3-Deep water bioogy

Activity 4- Boats(power and row)

Island overnight

The trip was a 5 day residential course on the island of Randøya with both the international and Norwegian classes participating. The course would consist of instruction on sea kayaking, shallow and deep water biology, power boats and rowing boats and would involve a night ‘marooned’ on an island.

I was looking forward to this week as it involved lots of things that I had never tried before and would be a good time to put skills into practice that I hadn’t used for a while.

On the first day we had to paddle the kayaks out to the island where I discovered that sea kayaks are much harder to turn than river boats.

Once we had unpacked we did some fishing, the fish were lining up to get on to our hooks and very quickly I’d caught 4 fish. The activity we had that afternoon was sea kayaking, Steven was asked to deliver some basic strokes to the group as some members had never kayaked before. Because I could kayak I tried to help people out with some tips and think it was received well.

In the evening I lit the bbq and cooked some of my fish for my dinner, we spent the evening in the mess playing cards and talking.

The next day we went for a short kayak trip around the north of the island and to a neighbouring island. The plan was to head through a slot, cross the open stretch of water to the south and round the south of Randøya. However the waves were too big for us to go through the slot safely so we crossed slightly to the north. For this one of the Norwegians was leading and map reading. Len was ‘safety boat’ at the front, I was in the middle and Jochen was at the back, we were there in case someone capsized as we had enough control over our kayaks in order to reach them quickly and rescue them.

During the afternoon we had shallow water biology, wading in the inlets with nets and gathering whatever we could find. We managed to gather lots of sea weed, some muscles and other sea creatures. The challenge was to then identify everything from some big flow charts. After this the instructor had a treat for us: snails! They aren’t something that I’d choose to eat but its always good to know where to find food if you need it.

On day three we had deep water biology, this involved getting kitted out in wet suits, goggles, flippers, weight belts and snorkels. Jochen was my buddy and I felt safe with him as he’d been scuba diving before. We headed away from the rest of the group and found some deeper sections. Jochen showed me how to dive to half depth and swim along. Apart from my flipper falling off a couple of times I think it went really well, we found lots of interesting shells and if I had the opportunity I’d give it another go.

That evening it was our turn to be marooned on an island. We were only allowed what we would have in a day pack for rowing and had to survive with that. I did pack another jacket but that was the only thing I cheated with, some people in my group and in the other groups took the piss a bit: packing loads of extra food, bivvy bags and one person took a sleeping bag!

We had to row out to a neighbouring island to get wood as ours had no wood on it, on the way we fished from the boat and I caught 5 fish- only 2 were big enough to keep though. We spent the night sat around the campfire that I lit, cooking fish and limpets on hot rocks and listening to Lars’ radio. In the morning we brought in the nets we had cast the night before and rowed back to Randøya. We spent the rest of the morning cleaning the nets and learning how to properly fillet the fish that we’d caught in the nets.

That afternoon we were on the big diesel boat, there wasn’t really much to do on this and we mostly just relaxed and took it in turns to crew the boat.

That night we had fish soup with the fish from the nets and I grilled a big cod on the bbq. By this point of the week some people were beginning to get on my nerves so it was good that it was raining a little as it meant that I could tend the fire with my headphones in and not be interrupted by anyone and could relax on my own for a while.

On the last day we went rowing, we were instructed on rowing boats and a little of their history in Norway and then had some races and movement exercises.

It was a short session though because we had to return to Randøya, pack and clean the buildings.

Overall the week was really informative and enjoyable, I learnt some new things and practiced some old skills. It was really nice to properly get to know the Norwegians and I think everyone had a good laugh.