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They say that all good things must come to an end.

Last Friday morning, we said farewell to the Cape Eleuthera Institute’s Gap Year students. We did so with heavy hearts but heads held high, confident in their abilities and potential to do good work wherever they are and to continue to be stewards of the earth, their communities, and themselves.

In their final weeks, Cole, Jon, Shelby, Shaquel, Sarah, and Lulu worked feverishly on piecing together their Independent Student Projects, which they presented to members of both the IS and CEI communities early last week. The work Continue reading →

Hello World,

This is Jonathan Karlson coming to you from the Cape Eleuthera Institute on the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas. It’s the end of week six for the GAP semester and CEI has officially become our second home! The past week has been eventful to say the least. Amidst the exasperating work on our independent student projects (ISPs), long afternoons spent working on rescue SCUBA knowledge reviews, and fearless research for our Human Ecology paper, the Gap Year students took a well-deserved hiatus from the rigorous schedule that is CEI and went for a five-day kayak and camping trip down the eastern side of the Cape.

Before departing, we packed heavily on Sunday afternoon, splitting into teams of three to gather both food (such as cheese, tortillas, pancake mix, GORP, peanut butter, jelly, bread, and granola) and gear (such as tents, sleeping bags, pads, crazy creeks, dromedaries for water, tarps, paddles, PFDs, spray skirts, and whistles). Once the gear was nicely stowed in the boathouse for our departure the following morning, we retired to our dorms to pack personal gear and prepare mentally for a rough, yet relaxing next couple of days (or so we thought…).

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Boy, how time does fly.

Today marked the completion of week five of our two months here on the Cape, and we couldn’t be happier–or busier, for that matter. We finished our Down Island Trip on Saturday and settled back into campus to continue work on our ISPs on Monday. We then spent the rest of the week diving into these projects–from collecting Amber Pen Shells, to completing conservation surveys in Rock Sound, to helping the lionfish team survey their patch reefs. After also spending some of our time leading the Branson School students, visiting for the week from California, through some of the exercises and routines Island School students get to experience every day, the weekend came and everybody had a chance to relax before tying up loose ends and prepping for our kayak trip. With all of our food, tents, and gear packed and set aside we will be ready to leave tomorrow morning after breakfast for five days out on the Caribbean Sea, and man what an experience it will be.

–Cole Meyerhoff