From the 29^th of May to the 2^nd of June the Randoya trip organized by the University took place. It was a joined trip with both the international students and the Norwegian outdoor education students. The aim of the trip was to discover the costal environment and learn skills needed in costal areas. During the week we were divided into four different groups consisting of Norwegians and internationals. The program for the following day included different activities teaching us skills in costal biology, rowing, kayaking or bush crafting. Sub groups within the four groups prepared short lectures on different activities for the week.

On Monday morning we arrived at our accommodation for the week. We were staying at Ostre-Randoya, an Island with a former military camp. Three different huts were designated to us for sleeping, cooking and living areas.  Usually we had two lectures at one day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The other time was left to us, so that the trip had the character of a holiday camp. The program for my group looked as follows:

 

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Morning	Arrival	Biology: Costal EnvironmentSnorkeling	Catch of the Day	Rowing	Kayaking Trip
Afteroon	Biology: Costal Environment	Island Survival Overnight	Sea Navigation and boat steering	Kayaking basics	Cleaning and departure

 

 

Day One

 

We met dock close to the island of Randoya at ten a clock an started loading to boat with our luggage and the gear needed for the week. Two boats brought the lecturers and us to the old military camp on the island. After a short introduction and a speech about the general rules and the program we moved in to the old huts. We shared two four bed room dorms between the internationals and four dorm among the Norwegian male students. After setting everything up we left for the first lecture.

 

Svein Grundetjern, whose field of expertise is biology, took us out to a sheltered shallow bay. Well equipped we had the chance to collect different species of seaweed, plants and animals. Two of the Norwegian students had prepared charts to distinguish between the different species we found. One focus of the lesson was on creating an awareness of what is eatable in the costal environment. We found many different mussels and snails that could be eaten with caution depending on the region. Also different kinds of seaweed could be eaten. For most of the international students it was interesting and many the species were new to us. The Norwegians who grew up in this area told us how they had already caught craps and mussels as small children. For this reason the lesson also taught us on Norwegian culture and customs. However not only sea creatures and plants were of interest. We furthermore discovered beach cabbage and a newly eclosed butterfly.

 

Since the activities for the evening was left to us a large group of the international students started fishing in order provide fish for the dinner.

 

Day Two

 

The following day Svein took our group to another small sheltered bay. We were all equipped with snorkeling gear and started to discover the surroundings. Whenever we found something of interest we would collect it and learn more about it at the end of the session. We discovered several starfishes, seaweeds, mussels, snails and jellyfish.

 

The afternoon lesson for this day was special. The task for the afternoon lesson was to row to a nearby island and spent the night without any sleeping bags or mattresses.  This scenario should be a practice for a situation when the weather or other circumstances would force us to stay over nights on an island with equipment of a day trip. Svein Rune explained us the scenario and provided us with tarps and some food for the island.  One further task for the trip was to discover the Norwegian tradition of fishing with a net. Two of the Norwegian students had prepared a small introduction on this tradition. Svein gave us further instructions on how to put the net out and what to consider when we do so. Things we had to consider were the depth of the water, the direction of wind, and the angle to the shore.

After this introduction we took of in four rowing boats to the island we had decided to camp on. Svein had suggested an island close to Randoya due to the windy conditions.

Connor, Timon and me were in one rowing boat together and nobody of us had much experience in rowing. The wind made the rowing even harder and we were struggling to make it out  of the bay. After about 20 minutes we finally found a good rhythm an manages to get to the island soon after and also lay out the net.

After that we tried to find a good campsite for the night. As a group we discovered two possible sites. Because we could not come to a decision through a vote, we decided by a coin flip. Although this meant have of the group was not that happy with the decision we had to live with it. We divided the group into three smaller groups and each of those groups set up a tarp to sleep under. During the process of decision making and setting up the campsite one could easily distinguish between different phases of group dynamics. However it felt like we rushed through the storming phase and continued to the performing although many small decisions still had to be made. Although we were one group for many parts during the week it felt like we were actually two groups, the Norwegians and the internationals. All of the internationals started to go fishing or collecting mussels. Only few of the Norwegian participated in that. However those that helped provided us with much additional knowledge and skills useful for fishing. We spent the rest of the evening sitting around the fire and listening to music while we prepared the food together. Overall it seemed like our group had a high cohesion during the tasks but not further.

 

Day Three

We left the camp quite early the following day. We pulled in the three nets and were happy to discover more than ten fish altogether.  Kjetil Fossheim, one of the lecturers, was responsible for teaching us on how to prepare the fish we caught. However before we started we had to get the fish out of the nets and clean the nets. Unfortunately the windy conditions resulted in huge amounts of seaweed stuck in our nets. It took our whole group about two hours to clean the nets. Although everybody was tired and not pleased with the work, everybody worked together efficiently. Due to the lost time we decided only to prepare the fish and not to cook lunch together and rather postpone it to dinner.

 

After a rather short break Kjetil taught us general rules we have to consider when navigating through the sea and how to read sea maps. After that we used the afternoon to steer the boat through the coastal waters. Each of us had the opportunity to steer the boat and help navigating.

The early evening most of our group members spent recovering from the night and relaxing. The internationals decided to start preparing the fish from our catch this morning. The most of the Norwegians had already eaten and told us to take the fish. However we decided to prepare a big pot of fish soup and cook all of the fish filets. After finishing our whole group joined together for dinner and briefly reflected on the last days. The effort of the dinner preparation was highly appreciated and the others took over most of the cleaning.

 

Day four

 

On the forth day we started of with a lesson on rowing. Two of the Norwegian students had again prepared a short introduction on the topic. After that we took the rowing boats for a trip around one of the islands. On our boat we were four people. We had quite big difficulties steering the boat. Our ambition led to an increasing dissatisfaction. After a while we discovered that it was very hard for us to steer because the balance of the boat was uneven and we had to much weight on the bow.

 

The afternoon session was organized by two of the international students. They were teaching basic and advanced techniques in kayaking. However the whole group was not really motivated and they had a hard time teaching the techniques. After practicing for a while we started playing different versions of tag to improve the technique in a playful way. During the game one of the members capsized. The rescue took quite long since most of us did not take the situation seriously enough and also the organization of the rescue was not clear to everybody. However we managed to get the capsized person back into his kayak and returned to the camp.

 

To discover the small islands surrounding us for a group of the international students borrowed some kayaks the same evening and went for another small tour. Although we had been kayaking before our motivation to go kayaking was higher than in the lesson. During that trip we fooled around and had another capsize. The rescue was much faster. I believe a reason for that is that we spent so much time with each other over the last semester that we are surer about our roles in the team and are more confident in interacting with each other.

 

Day five

 

On the last day of the trip it was Connor’s, Timon’s and my task to find a short kayak trip suitable for our group. We figured out a route around the coastal areas where we had not been before to discover something new on the last day. For the main part of the trip we appointed different group members to find destinations on the map and lead us there. Due to the calm sea and wind conditions we had little problem navigating and paddling during the day and arrived back at the camp quit early.

 

For the rest of the stay we had to clean the accommodation and load the boats. Although the Norwegians and our Internationals had some differences regarding the cleaning of the living and kitchen areas everything worked out very well. The whole group managed very quickly and efficiently to clean our hut. After loading the boats with our gear and backpacks we left the island.

 

Reflection

Overall the trip taught us much about the costal live and activities in costal surroundings. Especially interesting was the connection of all the activities to the Norwegian culture. The Norwegians seemed to have a lot to teach us on those subjects and it was very fortunate for our group to profit from their skills in rowing, fishing and the knowledge about local vegetation.

 

However there were many differences between our groups. For the most time of the stay Norwegians and internationals kept within their usual groups. Only seldom did we participate in activities together in our free time.  Within our group we worked well together on the tasks we faced. It can be said that we had high task cohesion but the social cohesion during the trip was low. A possible explanation is the time we had spent together before that. We had only spent the Monday trips together, which did not really give us time to figure out group roles and a group feeling. In comparison the internationals spent the whole semester and knew each other really well. If we would have had more trips together we might have developed a stronger group cohesion with the Norwegians.

 

References

Meredith Belbin, R. (2011). Management teams: Why they succeed or fail. Human Resource Management International Digest, 19(3).

 

Tuckman, B. W., & Jensen, M. A. C. (1977). Stages of small-group development revisited. Group & Organization Studies, 2(4), 419-427.

 

Van Vianen, A. E., & De Dreu, C. K. (2001). Personality in teams: Its relationship to social cohesion, task cohesion, and team performance. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 10(2), 97-120.