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The following is a Cacique update written by Arielle and Julian for Tuesday, July 26th.
Tuesday started out bright and early as both students and families ran, biked, walked, and in some cases drove, to High Rock. Not all our guest were thrilled with the early wake up but were exited to go any way. Many took this as chance to show off in front of their families and quickly completed the two-mile run. Almost everyone took the plunge off High Rock to cool off and relax in its clear blue waters, before heading back to campus to prepare for the day.
Island School students spent their last few minutes preparing for their Human Ecology presentations. The food pamphlet group scrambled to print out brochures and finished with a few seconds to spare. After an awards ceremony congratulating many returning alumni and faculty that made summer term possible, each group did their best to show what they had done and learned in the last week. After the last presentation on Boy’s Dorm Beach and several days of hard and occasionally stressful work, Human Ecology was finally over. Not just Human Ecology, our classes were finally over. Of course we still had to write a student letter and make a portfolio but it felt like we were done.
After eating lunch and finishing our portfolios everyone had a chance to sign out for the last time. A few used their time biking around the loop, exploring No Name, and relaxing at Sunset beach. Other students went out with their families to hang out inside the marina or go SCUBA diving. However it was spent, everyone made the most out of his or her final free time
The Perez and Erdman families had arranged to try SCUBA diving for the first time. David Miller had given the families a crash course and the basics to a successful first dive. After setting up gear we were briefed on the boat ride to Sunset Beach. Emotions were flying as the new divers were asked to back roll of the side of the boat in full gear. The families we confident enough to trust the two very experienced dive instructors David Miller, Peter Zdrojewski, Malcolm who was a very helpful hand, and Julian acting as a “dive master” helping out his family underwater. The dive and the instructions were in very shallow water and lasted about 45 minutes.
After free time everyone got back together for dinner and the parents, faculty, and alumni were invited to the Maxey house at the marina. The students spent the rest of the night finishing up their last few assignments, portfolios, and a summer term program evaluation. Study hours ended half an hour early so we could all get extra sleep for the final morning exercise, the triathlon, which we’ve been training for the past five weeks.