Coastal Course Randøya 29.05. – 02.06.
This trip was our last one we did with the Norwegians Outdoor students. It took place on East Randøya, just outside of Kristiansand. Besides Len, three other lecturers would teach us different skills in several activities, two per day were planned.
Following aspects were declared as learning outcome: “be capable of using the sea and coastline as an arena for learning, development and experiences in diverse user groups.” We were about to gain practical experience in:
– Life in tidal waters
– Deep water biology
– Nets and trap fishing
– Fishing tools
– Preparation and arrangement of a dinner using raw materials from the sea
– Boat and sea knowledge
– Seamanship
– Regulations at sea
– Navigation at sea
– Snorkelling
– Rowing and use of outboard engines
– Kayaking in sea kayak
– Sailing in small boats
I was in Group 3 with six other Norwegian Students and Simon, George and Hannah. We started our trip at Kongshavn, where we packed our bags, the kayaks and the rest of the equipment on two boats and took off to Randøya. Once arrived, we sorted out the accommodation and cleared general information. Since the whole area was used as a barrack in the earlier days, the accommodation looked not the most comfortable one, but the boys were fortunate to sleep in the hospital, which even had a shower and a living room. Our first activity on the afternoon was kayaking. Len taught us several techniques and strokes:
| sculling for support | Lay the paddle flat on the water and draw and eight | Balance the kayak |
| Low recovery support stroke | While loosing balance quickly slap the surface of water with the back of the paddle | Balance the kayak |
| Bow rudder stroke | Put paddle in water face the front face of blade toward kayak | turning |
| (Sculling) Draw stroke | Put paddle almost vertical in water, blade faces kayak, move paddle forth and back parallel to kayak, while turning the paddle slightly toward the direction of the sweep. | Moving sideways |
Another technique was edging for instance, where you lean the whole kayak towards one side (left) and it will turn to the opposite side (right).
In the case of capsizing one’s attention should always be to get the person out of the water as fast as possible by letting him climb on another kayak for example. By building a raft you create a bigger surface for the person to rest on. Furthermore, one person can take the capsized kayak an pull it over the raft, so all the water will leak out of the kayak and the capsized person can get back in his/her kayak. Check if the person is cold or injured before continue kayaking.
During the evening Kjetill took us for a walk around the island where we had the chance to have a look at different abandoned buildings and bunker from the war and post-war time.
On the next morning, we took the kayaks for a tour, about nine kilometer long, around the area and practiced the techniques once again.
The next activity on Tuesday afternoon was Shall Water Biology. 
Svein took us to a place close to the barracks and let us put on waterproof pants with boots and gave us little boxes, aqua scopes and dip nets. Then he sent us out in the bay to collect everything interesting we would find. We found a lot of see weeds and animals such as shrimps, crabs, starfish, snails, worms, mussels and other strange ones. We collected them in the white boxes and Svein explained us all the species and fed us with facts about them. Afterwards, we went along the coast for a walk and he explained us different weeds and plants of which we even ate some like sea cabbage. I especially liked his passion about the stuff the taught us, which made me having a lot of fun during the activity.
We basically did the same thing on the next morning again, just in another bay and while snorkeling which was a lot of fun, too.
Regarding to our schedule it was our turn for the night on the island. We set off around 14:30 after a quick briefing. Due to windy weather conditions we stayed at an island nearby.
On the way there we put out the nets a at place which we approved as appropriate. After arriving on the island we spread out for fishing, collecting mussels and shrimps and building the shelter. I volunteered for fishing and left to look for a good spot. Simon and George were with me and at the beginning we had no luck at all. We didn’t catch a single fish and went on and on for the perfect spot. After fishing the whole afternoon until dinner time we manage to catch six fish anyhow. Two cods, three sai and a pipefish happen to be our dinner for that night. Happily we came back to the others who prepared some mussels and shrimps already and set up a fire. We sat together, gut out the fish and prepared the rest of the vegetables we were given before. We had some really nice chats with the Norwegians, enjoying the tasty fish and played some games. We sat around the fire for a while and went finally went to bed. As the tarp was not big enough for everyone, I slept in a little hole on the ground. With my life vest as a pillow and my bivy bag as my blanket I had a nice sleep. I woke up some times during the night but was lucky to sleep through the night as others just slept one or two hours. We went back on Thursday morning, pulled back in the nets and found we had caught only four fish. We slept for another two hours before having the morning session with Kjetill about how to prepare a proper meal with the fish we caught in the nets during the night. First thing we had to do was cleaning the nets by laying them down and removing see weeds. At the same time we could let them dry, too. Then he taught us proper ways how to filet a fish before having us trying it out ourselves. We split the groups for preparing a fish soup and my task was to filet the flounders. It was very difficult as I never done that before and it happen to be not perfect but reasonable. Kjetill also gave us some vegetables for the soup and it happen to be very tasty.
For the last afternoon session we went out with Kjetill and the large boats. After a briefing about sea maps he divided us into three groups. I was the first one to steer the boat with the help of my group who was navigating. It was a lot of fun and because it was quite windy, it was not easy to steer the boat on the open sea. Not to let the waves hit the side of the boat was one aspect I had to take care of. Also paying attention not to hit a rock or a cliff that could just lay under the water surface was very exciting. I had no experience at that point but with the help of my group and Kjetill all we had was a rough sea swaying our boat and it was such a cool experience. We took turns and the rest of the tour people of the other groups were steering while I was enjoying the drive.
Our last activity was rowing which I also have never done before. Svine was with Simon and me in a boat so we could get corrected immediately.
I got the hang of it mostly pretty good but still we couldn’t catch up with the other boars since they had two people rowing at the same time and our boat was just made for one rower. But that didn’t really bother us. We also stopped at a point so Svine could teach us some sailing knots.
After we got back to the barracks it was time to clean up the place and finally we left early afternoon.
General outcome
I have to say I learned a lot during this week. All those different activities I barely or never have done before enriched my knowledge heaps. I was able to practice my skills and got to know so many new things about the coastal life. How to use resources and survive the best is what I can take with for my further life.
However, I had mixed feelings about the weather. Some days it was nice and sunny while other days happen to be rainy and windy. So we had a bit of everything.
In general it was also interesting to see how two mixed groups would work together. We Internationals have known the Norwegians Outdoor students for five months now, but haven’t been with them on a trip since our Monday trips. And I have to say mostly it was rather a week of less interacting. The Norwegians mostly stayed by themselves and didn’t even speak English even when we were around. But I experienced the same with us Internationals mostly staying by ourselves. Maybe it was divided upon the fact that we are leaving soon anyway and there was no reason to bond any further with them but I personally also make it up to the typical Norwegian characteristics of being rather shy and quite than being loud and communicative. There were certain persons that didn’t fit into this stereotype and interacted with us a lot more but others again seemed to feel uncomfortable with strangers. I was a little bit sad that I experienced this during most of the week. Although we had situations at the fireplace for instance when we were on the island where we all had a good laugh and talked to each other. But yes, most of the time every group stayed within itself.
It was different to the interacting the Internationals had with each other. Because of that we rather focused on ourselves which means that we, for our part, spent more time with each other also without any further problems which was at least an enjoyable aspect.