Down Island Trip Day 1!

We were jolted out of bed in anticipation of our Down Island Trip. Our day started out with a long morning of packing the vans with our camping gear and nourishment. This day in particular had a spectacular start as we enjoyed plentiful amounts of egg frittata and, most importantly, POTATOES! After a superb breakfast, we headed out for our adventure, starting with a 2 hour drive up north to the Glass Window Bridge. We were all surprised at such an amazing view, with the treacherous dark blue waves of the Atlantic Ocean to the East and the tranquil aqua blue waters of the Caribbean Sea to the West. The only thing that separates these two bodies of water is a small 40 foot wide bridge.

We headed back down south a short way to visit the Island Made Gift Shop (to buy all of our wonderful parents and siblings fantastic Bahamian presents). Many of us faced shopping anxiety as we paced in and out of the store trying to find the perfect gifts. We then had a small sandwich and cassava chip lunch on a nearby beach.

After lunch, we packed ourselves into the vans and headed to the Hatchet Bay Caves. While there, we spelunked—in other words, we explored the caves like experts! Our geologically inclined counselor, Mackenzie, taught us all about the formation of the caves, and its relation to the freshwater lens from which the Island collects its drinking water. While in the caves, we channeled our inner warriors as we decorated our bodies with tribal markings from the clay at the bottom of the murky cave. We had tons of fun!

After all of this fun, it was time to make our way to the campsite. Due to gusty weather conditions, the site was moved from the abandoned resort, Club Med, to a small and shallow beach on the opposite side of the island. Once at the site, we immediately set up our tents and began collecting firewood to prepare our dinner. As we were preparing for the night, we saw the petite shadow of Ms. Post rise from over the top of the grassy hill. A roar of cheers exploded from the other side of the hill as we welcomed her back to Eleuthera (Amanda, we still miss you dearly!!) After we finished eating our delicious penne pasta with homemade vegetable stew, we cleared our plates in the ocean, and began yet another rousing game of mafia … dun dun dunnn. On her first day back with the group, Ms. Post managed to eliminate nearly all of her students without suspicion (figuratively of course). It was as if she never left.

Following a series of silly games, we concluded our busy day with a magnificent and relaxing stargazing session. We counted numerous shooting stars and attempted to name the constellations as we sang along to some of our favorite tunes.

PS - Sarah got sand in her toothbrush and is still in distress over the incident :(. Could be worse!

-Sarah & Mac

Conchs and Sharks, Part 2!

Today we awoke to yet another beautiful Bahamian morning.  For our morning exercise, we rode bikes to High Rock where we jumped off a 15 foot cliff.  The road was very rocky and treacherous, but the two mile trek was worthwhile.  After breakfast, our class yet again split into two teams: Team Osprey and Team Blue Crab.

Team Blue Crab went to Red Bay Beach to count the amount of living and dead conch on the beach.  We found a few dead conchs, which was very sad, but, we found at least seven sea stars, brittle stars, sponges, and other beautiful sea animals.  After lunch we went to Sunrise Beach.  At first we only found dead conch, but once we found one living conch we just kept finding them.  We found a total of 49 living conch, which was amazing!  Our third and final beach of the day, Fourth Hole, only had one living conch, but all signs of conch were scarce, therefore it was not too upsetting. 

Team Osprey started our day out on the open ocean with the shark team, which is researching why sharks die when caught on fishermen’s long lines.  Long lining takes patience, so we decided to go to various snorkeling spots to pass the time, only checking the lines every 30 minutes or so.  Our first snorkel was considered the most mind-blowing experience by many of us because we snorkeled over the continental shelf.  We could not see anything but the great blue abyss because the bottom was thousands of feet below.  Later in the day we snorkeled at other awesome spots such as the Garden of Eden and Tunnel Rock which were home to magnificent coral reefs.  Unfortunately, we did not catch any sharks but the experience was still very interesting.  We learned a lot about how the research process worked and cool facts about sharks.  Did you know that sharks are older than trees!? 

We miss you, Amanda – feel better!

Christina and Jenny

The "Cage" & SCUBA!!

               The exercise this morning was optional; some played soccer, but the vast majority of us slept in. (We needed it.) After a delicious breakfast of cinnamon buns, we met at the boat marina and headed out to sea to an aquaculture cage. This cage is used for fish farming; it is about 25 feet at the top and goes down 90 feet. We snorkeled above it and interacted with all of the fishes surrounding it. There were giant schools of pelagic fish, including horse eye jacks and yellow tail snapper. We saw a hammerhead shark (see inside the red circle for proof- this was a rare and incredible encounter!), as well as two reef sharks, which we all stalked! After our exciting endeavors, we returned to the school and ate lunch- we ate lionfish!

               After our great anticipation it was time to go scuba diving! We went to a remote beach and split up in groups. Each group had their own instructor who taught us basic scuba skills. While many of us were nervous for this adventure because of the risks, all of us can agree that it was the most amazing experience we’ve ever had. Breathing underwater felt extremely unusual, but we all managed to adjust to this strange feeling. Many of us saw sharks and other exotic fishes, up close and personal. (We all came back safe and healthy!)

               After dinner we met up at the boat house with another visiting school for a Bahamian dance party.  We learned a variety of Bahamian dances and mingled with the other school. After almost an hour of dancing we were all on the verge of passing out, so we returned to our dorms.

-Joe & Alex

A day on land!

Today we woke up before the crack of dawn and met at the flagpole at 6:30. We united around the flagpole and sang the Bahamian national anthem with minimal enthusiasm due to the distracting, light morning drizzle. After that, we made our way over to the water polo cut and spent the next forty-five minutes ruthlessly battling one another for the chance to bask in the glory of winning. It was close at first but then team “Our Team” pulled ahead in the last two minutes and won the game by two points, 6 to 4. Then we met over at the dining hall, where we ate hard boiled eggs, bacon and killer banana muffins!

After feasting on that, we went to the octagon on the Cape Eleuthera Institute side of campus to discuss consumerism and watched a documentary called “The Story of Stuff”. We discussed the film and came to the conclusion that we all could do a better job of conserving natural resources by not feeling the need to constantly keep up with trends, utilize things to their full capacity, and just all around think about how we treat the environment and how everything we do has a greater impact. We learned about the two types of consumers, perceived obsolescence and planned obsolescence. Most of the class realized that we fall prey to these manufacturing tricks and media pressures.  

We also watched a video about art made solely of natural resources that is only temporary as nature eventually takes it back. We then went into groups and had the opportunity to create our own artwork using materials that we found on the beach. The project ranged from sea turtles covered in shells to compasses to seaweed art.

After working hard in the hot noon sun, we went over to the dining hall to have lunch. Afterwards, we returned to the octagon and watched the interns present their fall term research projects. They ranged from lionfish to shark response on a long-line to fish behavior in warmer waters. They were interesting and a common piece of enjoyment was watching four sharks fight over another shark that had gotten caught on a hook.

After watching six fifteen-minute presentations, we were free to do whatever we wanted. A few people read and sketched, some explored the island, and many played jackpot on the beach. A very popular game we have started playing is “Mafia.”  It’s a very middle school game, but it is really fun to play as a group out in the common room. It involves a speaker who explains the story line of two mafia members “killing” someone and then an angel who can save anyone and then a detective who picks a suspect while everyone’s eyes are closed. Today was a dry day, but tomorrow we are going snorkeling and scuba diving.  We are all very excited.  Best of all we get to sleep in tomorrow morning-- 7:30AM wake up! 

More tomorrow,

Mary & Christina

Conchs and Sharks, Part 1!

For the second day in a row, we woke at 6:10 to a lush and beautiful sunrise over the horizon.  We soon transitioned to the flagpole where we reconvened with the Canadian school, Trinity, to raise the flag and sing the Bahamian national anthem.  Today, we sang the anthem much better than yesterday.  Soon after, we voyaged to the beach where a rousing game of beach volleyball took place.  Henry was so excited he had to be confined to a circle to protect his teammates! 

As the sun rose higher and the temperature rose, we traveled to the dining hall where we had a scrumptious egg, bacon, grits, and oats breakfast.  After breakfast, we split up into two groups, Team Osprey and Team Blue Crab.  Team Blue Crab voyaged into the open ocean for the entire day in hopes of catching sharks on long lines.  The reasons for catching these sharks are to study the effects of stress on the different types of sharks that inhabit the waters surrounding Eleuthera. They positioned GoPro cameras along the lines so that later they would be able to compare and contrast the behavior while hooked on the long line.  The types of sharks they were looking for were reef, tiger, nurse, and bull sharks.  However, they came up empty netted. 

The other half of the class spent the day working on Hawken’s new research project-- we will be studying and tracking the conch populations in both the cape and open ocean waters.  The first stage of the project is to find baseline numbers on the current conch populations.  We surveyed three beaches today.  For the first beach, we had to travel down island to Deep Creek, the nearest settlement to the Island School, to visit a beach named Plum Creek.  At this location we only found one lonely conch along with five dead conchs in an hour of searching.  We believe the numbers were low due to the fact of the benthic environment--  it was mainly sand and sparsely placed sea grass.  

After our first survey we headed back to campus for a quick lunch and soon ventured to our second location, the beach right in front of our dorm.  Here, we observed over 200 dead conchs and only three living conchs.  The multitude of dead conch may be due to the fact that fishermen routinely harvest their catch in the Island School harbor.  However, we did observe much higher quantities of sea grass here which may predict higher numbers in the future.  Juvenile conchs thrive in environments filled with sea grass. 

Lastly, we biked to Sunset Beach where we, again, found over 200 hundred dead conchs and only one living conch.  The benthic environment here was reef-like-- rocky with very little sea grass.  This combination made the area undesirable for the conch to live in.  On our way back from Sunset Beach, we decided to stop at the Marina to hopefully catch a glimpse of a bull shark, and what we saw was mesmerizing.  As fishermen were cleaning their catch, we observed four nurse and one bull shark feasting on the scraps that made their way to the water.  The bull shark stood out from the rest with its wide shadow and powerful attacks.  The Blue Crab Team met up with us there and watched in awe with us.  

We were all wiped out after a long day on and in the water.  Things winded down as dinner approached.  Afterwards, we transitioned into an algae dissection in which we learned about the different types and how they fit into the community.  We found many different creatures living inside the algae including fire worms, crabs, snapping shrimp, and small fish.  Overall, today was filled with joy and excitement and we look forward to doing it all again tomorrow, especially the CEI research symposium. 

- Max & Chase

    

Started with a run-swim!

We started off our early morning with a vigorous run-swim (across 4 coves), an essential part of the Island School experience. It was exhausting, but the fact that we all stayed together and pushed through it really paid off in the end. Chris Maxey, the founder, led the way!

After breakfast we drove out to the 4^th Hole (an old resort golf course) and snorkeled through the magnificent coral reef. We saw a variety of colorful fish other incredible organisms, including fairy basslets (like the ones in our fish tank back home!).

Later in the day we learned how to identify fish based on their mouth, body, and fin shapes. Using this new information, we took the boats out to snorkel at “Some Ting to See.” There, we saw many different creatures, including: a queen angelfish, an eel, a squirrelfish, and a queen triggerfish. The lessons we learned during the fish identification helped us better identify what we were seeing.

After a great turkey dinner, our group learned about the research project that we will be working on for the duration of our stay at the Island School. Liz Slingsby, one of our staff members, taught us all about conch and the surroundings that affect them. During the trip, we will be surveying numbers of conch and identifying things that effect how they live.

We had a long and fun-filled day of snorkeling and learning, and then Ms. Post taught all of us how to make Turks Head bracelets. Although it proved to be a challenging task, most of us powered through and now have a fabulous new accessory for our wrist or ankle!

                Everyone looks forward to learning about conch in depth and using what we have learned to make our experience here in Eleuthera even better.

- Mac & Lauren

Long fun day yesterday with a late night, 2 blog posts will be here tonight!