My name is Jack Martin and I am from Philadelphia, PA. Newly assigned to write the upcoming student updates, I am excited to share my experience here over the next few weeks.
This past Tuesday was one of the most exciting Swim track workouts because we were finally allowed to swim in the current cut at the Marina. The cut doubles as a challenging exercise and a relaxing, lazy river, depending on which direction the water is flowing. Until this week, the cut had been off limits to students because of the strong currents and the not-so-friendly residents that swim through it. Although Scotty assured us the bull sharks were gone, having passed on seasonally to different waters, we spotted a small lemon shark about 10 seconds after we began our swim! A few girls shrieked and everyone stopped to look, but we were all quickly assured that a little shark like that is far more afraid of us than we are of him.

Yesterday, the shark research team had a second encounter with a Lemon shark, only this one was a little bigger… I was leaning over the front of the boat checking our fishing line, when I noticed one of our hooks was sagging deep into the water. As I began to work my way towards the hook, I spotted him. A big, beautiful 7-foot Lemon was hooked cleanly. This was our very first Lemon shark we caught this semester, and a very exciting field day on the boat. Two lemon sharks in two days is pretty typical of my life here at Island School… I wonder how many people in the world can say that?