Wow – we’re going to Schiermonnikoog! (1/5)

Note: I wrote these blogs for myself, for some friends and for everyone who’d like to know what this group of biology students/teachers were doing on the island last week. It contains impossible-to-translate jokes and ‘you had to be there’ moments. It also covers the investigations we’ve been doing (the ‘goede biologische momenten’) and it might give an idea of how gorgeous the place is. Please also note I have used pictures I took myself, as well as shots from fellow students Edwin, Sharinda and Sjors (so if you want to reproduce any of them, you should check with me first). En door!
 

Maandag: oriëntatiedag
 

To cross the full length of the Netherlands, from the most southerly to the most northerly point, you’d be making a trip of about 375 kilometres. Sure, it’s a little country. And we were taking the 12.30 boat from Lauwersoog, so everyone would be able to make it there on time. Still, I didn’t want to risk taking this trip that same morning, so I crashed at mum’s. I knew it would come in handy one day that she moved to Friesland, the same province ‘Schier’ belongs to. The student who lives farthest off became the one who could lie-in longest, with mum offering to take me to the harbour even. Not that I did, I was too excited to stay in bed. Mums heard all about our plans and decided to take the boat with us, to get a glimpse of what paradise I’d be working in the rest of the week.
 

It was going to be a lot of work. We knew from previous projects for this course and the pile of papers for this particular module kind of gave it away too. The module is ‘Ecology of the Salty Waters’, or in short: EZOU. It came with a list of about 200 species we had to memorise, as we’d be given a test on the island. Mum had listened to me sighing the night before, when I was wondering out loud how many different kinds of weeds-with-yellow-flowers one could possibly find on a small island. When I had googled ‘Heen’ (a kind of Cypergras) and the search engine asked me if I meant ‘heen en weer’, I decided I’d learn the rest on the island with the words ‘dat krijg je ervan ja’. Not that this really could change how much I was looking forward to this trip!
 

So were the others. We were with a group of about 20 students, of whom I probably knew half. The other half was not hard to pick from the crowds, judging by their luggage. I travelled relatively light, but even my books and boots felt heavy by the time we could put everything on the wagons. We saw our teachers first on the boat, while we were just enjoying the view and catching up with everyone. It had been a while since we last worked together, which is just how it goes doing a course like this next to day jobs. So the pre-fun had started a while ago as well, though everyday life flies by so fast it still felt as if I was on this boat sort of suddenly. We were lucky. All the rain seemed to have fallen the night before, leaving just a nice breeze and lots of sunlight on our faces.
 

“I love Limburg, but I always felt we’re missing one big thing: a beach”, I remember saying before I finally set foot on one of the Dutch islands for the first time (and from the investigations I had done, on the prettiest one). Edwin, sitting opposite of me, raised an eyebrow. Well it’s just not easy for a girl like me, you know, with having been a mermaid in a previous life – I concluded. Then someone pointed out a gull, a real one! (We’ve been calling every bird ‘gull’ since our last ecology expedition, on which we had to recognise birds by sounds. The birds we knew became crow-gull, sparrow-gull and starling-gull and yes we think this is funny. We also e-meeuw each other since). I felt free as a bird when, after 45 minutes, I dropped my bag near a bike without a worry on my mind.
 

I had kissed mums goodbye on the boat and fell in love with my rented means of transportation for the week immediately. While one of our teachers would be taking care of the bags after all, the other didn’t know where to go to. I was cycling circles and shouted I had looked up where the farm was and so the teacher told everyone to follow me, ‘het sterrenmeisje, ik weet je naam even niet’. I replied back that my name’s Hanny, but that ‘stargirl’ would do too indeed. I wouldn’t be the only one with a nickname for long. If you actually know me in real life, you’re probably wondering right now who I am and what I did to Hanny, but it’s really me and we didn’t get lost! (It was only one way, keeping the mudflats on the left).
 

I had been rowing the day before and some muscles ached, but I didn’t notice this as we were on route to our home for the week. The little farm called Springfield had enough space to store all our bikes, as nobody here really gets around by car. It also had a great yard, a great view, a cosy living room and two bedrooms and bathrooms. Picture one of those camping trip accommodations for a class of primary school kids. Yes, we had bunk beds! I quickly found a spot near the window, where I put my anti-mozzy stick as a warning sign to all flying, biting creatures. Then we tried the kitchen and sat down with tea in the garden, to hear the plan for the rest of this week. The group was divided in two there and then and jeans were changed for shorts for our first trip.
 

An orientation cycle route, around the island. Our teacher would point out interesting places, locations in which we later would be doing examinations. He explained the differences in landscapes and why the plants growing there were growing there. We asked him the name of every flower or shrub we saw, as it was likely we had to reproduce the name on Thursday evening, for the exam. But also because we are ‘biofielen’ and we want to know. We learned that the leaves of the Lamsoor (Strandkruidfamilie) have glands on the bottom side that take out the excess salt. The salt crystals shine when touched by sunlight. We also saw Duindoorn (of the Duindoornfamilie) in real life and I learned to recognise Riet by the devil’s bite marks on its leaves.
 

We went from Bank naar Banck to the Westerplas, where we saw more plants with family names exactly matching the plant names and we agreed to fill in these matching names if we wouldn’t be able to come up with a better answer on Thursday. We saw wild ducks (duck-gulls) fly over and we made little stops in between every time we saw something interesting. Eventually leaving the muddy Wadden Sea (which is an important ecosystem and inscribed on UNESCO’s World Heritage List), we headed north into the direction of the red lighthouse and the dunes of the North Sea. Here we saw the Pine trees, planted in 1915 by the owner of the island back then, Graf Von Bernstorff. They prevent the wind from blowing away too much sand.
 

We cycled back to the village via the Scheepstrapad, but not before I almost (accidentally!) fell into a stream with my bike. Later this would turn out the driest quest. What seemed like a short track, had actually taken some time, although I hardly paid attention to the clock. A cooking and cleaning schedule had been made and we had guessed ‘pasta for dinner’ correctly. I was part of the dishes crew this first evening, but we also got help from colleagues who were not. After that, we sat down with our laptops to write a report of the day, which we would have to hand in later as a log of all creatures we saw, where and why. This programme for the day would more or less be the same for the three days to come.
 

We were probably tired, but you only live once right. While cycling earlier I had expressed how much I felt the beach’ pull like a magnet and the fellow nutcase next to me agreed to go that night with the words ‘what happens on the island, stays on the island’. That probably sounds more funky than it was, but we did get a small group together, bought some beers in the only supermarket on the island and in what felt like ten minutes later we were walking on sand. I had never been on a beach at night and it left quite the impression. The sounds of the dark waves and the light of the lighthouse playing with us. The moon, the stars and the clouds; it was ours for the moment. Well, until the owners of the pavilion asked us to leave. I already knew I wouldn’t want to go at the end of the week.
 

More pictures of Monday can be found on my flickr page.