There’s no doubt that one highlight of an Island School semester is the half-marathon and super swim, which gives students and faculty the chance to push themselves to levels of physical extremity that seemed impossible just three months prior.
Scott, training for the Super Swim
Our Human Ecology group’s idea was to fundraise for the Cape Eleuthera Foundation, and we decided that we could raise money by giving others a glimpse into the individual stories of 5 athletes training for their big event.
Our group project was aptly named “Fundracer.” A boy and a girl from both the swim and run tracks were selected, as well as a faculty member, who were filmed during exercise and interviewed. Although their experience and athletic abilities vary, it is clear that each athlete has been giving it their all—day in and day out.
Each of the 5 participants are representing a specific branch of the Cape Eleuthera Foundation, which are The Island School, Early Learning Center (ELC), Center for Sustainable Development (CSD), Cape Eleuthera Institute (CEI), and the Deep Creek Middle School (DCMS). Whether alum or parent, it is easy to relate and become inspired by the stories of each athlete and the progress that has been made so far.
To donate each cause click here but make sure to specify which cause you’re supporting by leaving the following comment on the Give page: ‘FundRacer: Student/Faculty Name’
Stay tuned in the near future for an update video before the big events. Your support keeps our community thriving; any donation is much appreciated. Thanks for reading & we hope you enjoy our videos!
The tables were set and the food was ready, all that was missing were the parents. Sure enough at 5 o’clock sharp cars started rolling into the driveway. Students massed together outside the girls dorm waiting excitedly for their parents to finally arrive and cheering when each student ran and gave their family the much anticipated hug.
The next few hours were spent giving tours of the beautiful campus and showing off the art gallery.
At 6:30 we gather to circle and for the first time as we counted off we were all together and the parents were already learning about life at The Island School.
Dinners with advisory groups followed and at 8 o’clock families were ushered off of campus so that we could prepare for our research presentations the next day.
Thursday morning parents continued to learn about the Island School when they joined their students during morning exercise and either participated in run or swim track.
Morning exercise was followed by breakfast with our families and then the much anticipated research presentation.
After the presentations we gathered at the flagpole to pose for a parent’s weekend group photo and then geared up for an afternoon filled with student-teacher conferences.
Friday morning we gathered as a group at 6:30 to prepare for a run to High Rock where we watched our families take the jump just like we did at the beginning of the semester.
The day was filled with directors presentations and the opening of The Center for Sustainable Development!
Friday night was highly anticipated as it was the coffee house! Highlights included a rap by Sam, Cole and Max, a father daughter guitar duet and a group sing along lead by Sam’s dad Ernie Parizeau.
Saturday was spent exploring the Island as students led their parents throughout Eleuthera. Many spent there time exploring beaches all around, eating lots of food and enjoying time with their families. And now we are trying to make the most of our 17 days left of the semester. Now that we are in our last academic week, we are starting to look forward to the finals ahead, the half marathon and the super swim, the research symposium and our last few weeks with our best friends.
The students at The Island School cannot believe that parent’s weekend is officially a day away! The fact that we will be reuniting with our family for the first time in nearly two months is beyond exciting. In the mean time there is a lot to do on the Island School Campus in preparation for the arrival of our parents.
Homemade Name Tags for Parents, Faculty & Staff
When our parents and siblings first come they will get a quick tour of the campus and then they are whisked off immediately to the art gallery where the cumulative artwork we have been working on this semester will be on display.
At the moment we are finishing the final parts of bringing the art show together but we are ahead of schedule so I am sure that it will come together beautifully.
Besides the art gallery the students are all gearing up for the final research presentations. At this point all of the research groups have presented there first run through to a small audience but we are still scrambling to make last minute changes to further perfect our performances.
What all the students are really looking forward to is alone time with their family to share all of the treasures that The Island School and Eleuthera withhold. There will be scheduled activities such as scuba dives and kayaking on campus for the students to do with their parents and I’m sure just about every student is excited to have the opportunity to start exploring the rest of the island!
There are plenty of great sights around the island, near and far. In South Eleuthera the two biggest attractions that Island School students know are the Rock Sound Ocean Hole and Lighthouse Beach. Lighthouse beach is an expansive Atlantic pink sand beach on the southernmost tip of the island, with high cliffs, beautiful sand, and (of course) an old lighthouse, this beach is a must see! This is also where the students took there 48 hour solos during the eight day kayak trips.
Lighthouse Beach
Farther north in Rock Sound lays Eleuthera’s famous Ocean Hole, visited by the first prime minister of The Bahamas, Lynden Oscar Pindling as well as Jacques Cousteau who tried and failed to find the bottom. This inland saltwater pond is believed to connect to the sea, and teems with fish- it ‘s like snorkeling without getting wet! Another one of the highlight from everyone’s down island trip, which is a great destination for parents, is Glass Window Bridge. Glass Window Bridge is the narrowest part of the Island and if you look to either side you will see a drastic contrast of the color of the ocean. On the Caribbean side the water is a vibrant turquoise, on the Atlantic side it is deep blue. Surrounding it are treacherous limestone cliffs that paint a dramatic landscape. These are just some of the many amazing sights that one can see on Eleuthera and some of the families will have the luck to do so.
Christopher and Molly Barnes, founders of the High Mountain Institute, a semester school in Leadville, CO, sailed their boat into Triangle Cut right next to our Island School campus last week during their epic family journey around the world. They got a tour of the grounds and were especially thrilled to reconnect with mathematics teacher, Catherine Klem (Island School Fall 2003 alumna), who taught as a teaching apprentice at HMI a few years ago.
Back: Chris Maxey, Christopher & Molly Barnes, Catherine Klem; Front: Porter & Jack Barnes
My Name is Sam Parizeau. I made this video to display all aspects of my Island School experience. It contains footage from thousands of feet in the air, to deep beneath the sea. I hope you enjoy it.
Monday was the first full day that all of the 48 Island School students were back together as a whole community. For the past three crazy weeks students have been split up in a combination of exhausting eight-day kayak trips, exciting down Island trips and a usual academic week.
I started with the academic week which was very relaxing after our crazy midterms week. Although we were still on campus there was plenty of fun things to do; night dives, yoga, free dives, an earth day celebration and best of all a rake and scrape dance class.
Then my small group of twelve embarked on our Down Island trip where we got to visit tourist destinations and resorts to see how tourism has affected Eleuthera and the greater Bahamas. Highlights of the Down Island trip included visiting a ginormous banyan tree, exploring Harbor Island, indulging in all of the sweets and food that we have missed at the Island School, jumping off a twenty foot cliff into a beautiful blue hole, and the Hatchet Bay caves where we got to paint our bodies with red mud.
Jumping into the blue hole!Preacher’s CaveHarkness at Governor’s Harbor LibraryGlass Window Bridge!
When we returned to campus with our stomachs substantially full and our faces a little redder we had to immediately pack for our eight-day kayak trip. This entailed packing six days of food, kayaks, personal and other gear.
Group gear ready to pack into our kayaksK4!
After we had a last good nights rest in our beds we woke up early the next morning at 6:30 and finished getting our kayaks packed up and ready. I can easily say that for most of us the eight-day kayak trip and the two-day solo were probably the hardest experiences of our life. With around five hours of paddling per day in the hot sun (don’t worry we were equipped with plenty of sunscreen) the first four days were pretty difficult. On the fourth day we finally reached light-house beach where we had our much anticipated solos.
Approaching LighthouseWe made it!
The 48 hours we all spent separately alone on the beach with very limited resources were spent in various ways. Some people spent the whole time busy adventuring into the coppice others swam, sunbathed and danced on the beach. Personally I spent a lot of time reflecting and writing in my placebook with the occasional visit into the coppice to open up a coconut.
Time at the Island School constantly feels like it goes by quickly so I really enjoyed the time to decompress and step back from all of the experiences that have occurred thus far in the semester. As Klem my group leader said at the end of the solo when we returned as a group, whether you made sense of you solo now or sometime later in your life it is an incredibly valuable experience.
Lastly, we spent our final two days paddling before we returned to the Island School Campus. After a relaxing Sunday where we could shower with fresh water and get a good nights sleep in a real bed we have a normal week of classes.
Students on campus are all so excited for the arrival of there parents which is only a week away but we are also gearing to organize the art show and research symposiums which will both be a huge part of parents weekend.
Like I said before, time passes by quickly at the Island School so I’m sure that we’ll see our parents in no time but for now it feels like there is so much to do before then. It’s hard to believe that the semester is coming close to the end (less then a month but whose counting). After Parents weekend we will only have two more weeks on the wonderful Island of Eleuthera.
But as a quote once said at dinner circle said, “Don’t count the days, make the days count.”
This weekend, the entire Spring 2014 semester will be reunited back on campus for the first time since beginning their 3-week block of academic, kayak, and down island trip rotations. This photo slideshow is a compilation of photos of each kayak group on the first day of their expeditions!
It still looks like night outside, but a few pull themselves out of bed to go free-diving, careful not to wake the others who opt to sleep in. W e gather our masks, snorkels, and fins, and head to the boathouse, where Chris Maxey is already leading breathing exercises.
From there we take two boats out to a place called tunnel rock. One of the faculty, Mike, instructs me on how to drive the boat around the shallow rocks and sandbars that stretch out across the ocean. We get to tunnel rock and tie the boat to a buoy. I look down to see the huge rock formation covered in beautiful coral heads, with a long, partially covered tunnel leading through it that the dive sit is named after. Most of the rock is only ten or fifteen feet deep, and the sandy bottom surrounding it goes down to thirty.
Some dive to look at the corals and fish, others choose to push their boundaries, trying to touch the bottom or see how long they can stay under. As the sun rises over the open ocean, the twenty of us begin our dives.
I am warming up, doing a shallow fifteen foot dive, when I see someone far below me on the sandy bottom, taking off his fins. He proceeds to grab a rock and take a couple steps. He drops the rock and swims to the surface. On my next dive I see a lionfish, and I swim over to it in order to get a better look, keeping my distance, and when I look down I see someone slowly and calmly passing through the tunnel. He reaches the end and ascends calmly.
I find as the dive progresses that I can go further and further down, just by merit of practicing pushing my limits. I can stay down longer and longer, allowing me to stay more relaxed in the water, and to see more. I can’t get down very far, but that boundary is constantly being pushed, and my ability is constantly expanding.
It’s like my whole experience at the Island School, really. I suffered on my first dive, barely making it ten feet down, splashing awkwardly, breathing in water, and flailing my arms the whole way, but I was thrilled and addicted. I’m still awkward, I still can’t stay down for very long, but the more that I immerse myself into the idea of getting deeper and deeper, the further I go.
Now , I can get down to forty feet, and I’m practicing for a swim- through of tunnel rock, and it hurts every time. At the Island School, the thing that I have learned every single day, over and over again, is how to push myself, and how to completely invest my body and my mind into what I’m doing. The focus and the struggle inherent in a free-dive is the perfect microcosm of the Island School experience.
