The screams and squeals that echoed around campus marked K3 ‘s return home last night. The reunion was sweet but short-lived, however, for they depart once again this morning for their Down Island Trips. K1 and K2 have been enjoying their academic week on campus. We finished up our Human Ecology Intensives yesterday, which were focused on Sustainable Farming, Aquaponics, or Plastics. Each group spent a total of 9 hours working in these groups, learning in depth about the topics. Sustainable Farming learned about permaculture and all the systems we have on our own farm that imitate natural ones. We spent a handful of hours constructing an herb spiral. We made an escalating rock wall spiral and layered compost, cardboard, straw, pig manure, dirt, and seaweed on top. We put rotting logs on the bottom of the layers because they act like sponges and retain a lot of moisture. The purpose of the lasagna-like soil is to help create rich soil that stays wet, therefore reducing the amount of water needed. The purpose of the spiral shape is to create microclimates. The elevation in the middle creates shade for the sides, and the elevation encourages drainage of water, making the bottom of the spiral a shadier, wetter microclimate, and the very top the sunniest. Each group made videos about their projects and prepared 15-minute presentations for our last class. We had a lot of fun learning from our peers and watching their creative videos. The aquaponics group twisted some comedy into theirs, and scored quite a few laughs from the room.

Otherwise, students here are continuing with morning exercise, with run and swim tracks doing routing workouts this morning. Our pole swim was especially tricky due to the current and the waves. Definitely swallowed a considerable amount of water. We had a long exercise two days ago, and everyone is getting excited, as the Super Swim looms closer and closer. We are praying for good conditions.

This week we also went on our night dives. This was probably one of my favorite nights at The Island School. Simply being out on the boats as the sun was setting, the water unusually glassy, was a ludicrously beautiful sight. Our group descended, equipped with dive lights, and we immediately saw what I am positive to be an 8-foot long loggerhead sea turtle. It was so big it almost looked prehistoric. Our group sat still watching it for a good while until we thought our lights were bothering it, and I was so excited that I was exclaiming to myself through my regulator and squeezing my dive buddy’s arm. There was a lot of other life to see down there that we explored during our dive, but that turtle was something I will never forget. I went to sleep that night smiling; so happy with the place I am living, the experiences I am having, and the people I get to share them with.

Today will be the last day I write for the blog, as I leave Monday morning for my eight-day kayak trip.  We are wrapping up the regular academic weeks, as groups leave for kayak and down Island trips.  Yesterday was a full day of classes, to make up for the all day symposium on Thursday.  In Histories we are starting our tourism unit, so we assessed past and present tourism in The Bahamas.  We looked at old brochures of abandoned resorts and pamphlets from the omnipresent Atlantis.  We have a unique opportunity to travel down Island to explore the tourism and cultural scene of a separate part of the Island, and apply what we have learned in Histories to our surroundings. The Down Island trip will be three days of exploring and learning more about the tourism here on Eleuthera. Half of the students will have regular academics for two-weeks while the first two kayaks and down island trips happen, and then the process will switch.  Today and tomorrow will be the last time we will be all together for three weeks as these rotations happen, so we are all preparing for the journeys a head of us. Yesterday afternoon we had advisory time and my advisory swam and paddled around boathouse cut to enjoy a relaxing last advisory.  We ate some snacks and splashed around with Grey’s and Maria’s advisory as well.  Advisory is always a great time to explore Eleuthera or enjoy what campus has to offer.

Yesterday morning I started my day off in Water Polo cut doing some swimming drills with our coach Scottie.  He told us we were halfway done with our swim track, which means the super swim is getting closer everyday! We did some work on our strokes to make sure we were swimming efficiently, and finished with some all out sprints.  Swimming back the sun was rising over the trees and created a beautiful array of colors in the sky.

After a wonderful breakfast of French toast from Mooch, I headed out to Sunset Beach to complete an art project with my partner Read.  This week we have been learning about the artist Andy Goldsworthy who makes art out of the natural elements around him.  He works very patiently and delicately to make pieces of art out of stone, wood, ice, leaves, and other surrounding materials.  In class, Nadine and Maria introduced us to the idea of representing your sense of place through art and through this project. So Read and I decided to make a circular stone structure underwater. We choose to work with water because of the importance of it here at The Island School, and the circle construction was inspired from works of Andy Goldsworhty. We collected rounded stones from the beach and swam them off shore to a sandy spot about 10-15 underwater.  Documenting the whole thing, we swam down to the bottom and placed the stones in a circle.  As soon as we laid the first rocks down, juvenile parrotfish started circling the rocks and decided to treat it as their new home.  Continue reading →