Fährinsel
Coordinates: 54°32′38″N 13°7′15″E / 54.54389°N 13.12083°E
Fährinsel is a small Baltic Sea island off the eastern shore of the island of Hiddensee and which belongs to the Insel Hiddensee municipality. It is separated from Hiddensee by the narrow Bäk, only 120 metres wide in places. It forms the western part of the border between the Schaproder Bodden and the Vitter Bodden. The island is 1.23 km long and up to 580 metres wide. It has an area of ca. 37 ha. Ferry services between Rügen and Hiddensee used to run via Fährinsel. It was closed in 1952 when the port at Schaprode was upgraded to handle mailboat services. Fährinsel is a nature reserve and out-of-bounds to visitors. It is a roosting place for thousands of birds and the grazing area for a herd of Gotland sheep.
Fährinsel consists of a fan of several berms, up to 2 metres high, and spits, as well as silted-up areas of the lagoon, the Schaproder Bodden. About 12,500 years ago, during the last cold phase of the ice age, glacial ice masses piled up sand and gravel. When the ice retreated, the Dornbusch on Hiddensee, as well as two ridges of glacial till running westwards from Rügen, belonged to a vast Young Drift landscape in the southern Baltic Sea region. One ridge formed the heights of the island of Ummanz and the Gellen peninsula, another ran between Trent via the present Stolper Haken near Seehof northwards from Schaprode to the Fährinsel. Following the flooding of the region around Rügen and Hiddensee about 3,900 years ago, the aforementioned end moraines remained behind as islands. Not until much later (2,900 years ago) did abrasion begin, mainly as a result of breakers. Numerous spits and bars formed and Hiddensee was given its elongated shape. The block of till between Rügen and Fährinsel was eroded and, at some point, it must have been breached. When the remaining cliff section on the Fährinsel was abraded, southward running spits formed due to the currents from the northeast flowing past both sides of the northern tip of the island. The narrow bays, lagoons and runnels (Riegen) between the spits slowly filled with organic material and silted up.
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