CEI

Summer Systems Intern Blog: Stephan Grabner

As a Systems Intern at CEI this summer, I will work with Matt Poss, Sam Kenworthy and other members of the facilities team for the next two months. Although my main project this summer will be CEI’s biodiesel production, I will also help out with other projects that need an extra pair of hands.

At the moment we produce working fuel but don’t really know what quality it is. It’s easy to make biodiesel that seems to work well but has contaminants in it which relatively quickly destroy engines, are hazardous to the brewer and user, and which can actually be worse for the environment than petrodiesel. So having a clue about the quality of one’s product, as well as its various byproducts, is quite important! There are a lot of tests to which commercial biodiesel producers have to submit their product, but they generally require extremely costly equipment or highly trained analytical chemists, and- at least at the moment-  cannot be carried out here on Eleuthera. Over the next few weeks I will therefore research different tests we can reasonably do for every batch of diesel we produce and begin to use these tests on our feedstock oil and the diesel we make. This will allow us to ensure that our vehicles run smoothly and give us an idea of how the quality of our biodiesel varies from batch to batch, which in turn will allow us to improve our production process. So far I have worked only briefly with Marco Continue reading →

Daily Update

More Summer Term Journal Reflections

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Hello blog-readers! Check out a couple more stellar blogs from our Summer Term students. These responses are again referencing the recent two-day kayak trips and SCUBA certification courses the students have been completing during their orientation this past week. Today also marks the beginning of our summer academic rotations, in which students will spend a week in each of the three themes of the summer: Food, Ecology, and Tourism/Development. Keep an eye out for more journal entries as students delve into these themes while contemplating the central question of “How do we live well in a place?”

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Aiko Chamby

Starting yesterday, as part of our orientation week, we began SCUBA diving in the Eleuthera Saddle, and today in the Tunnel Rock. At Tunnel Rock, we saw all kinds of neat critters including a school of horse-eyed jacks and a peacock flounder. It was almost overwhelming and unexpected Continue reading →

Aquaculture, Cape Eleuthera Institute

Cobia Moved to the Aquaculture Cage!

The aquaculture program here is running essentially a model system for the commercial aquaculture industry; we aim to display that (delicious) carnivorous fish, cobia in our case, can be farmed in the Bahamas in an ecologically and economically sustainable fashion. Just last week we moved all of the juvenile cobia (around 1,000 fish) from the wet lab into the cage, which was quite an impressive feat. I don’t know why little fish would fight going into a huge shark resistant cage in the ocean to be fed every day, but fight they did. Though, with the help of pretty much the entire staff here at CEI the process went very smoothly. While one team transferred the cobia to two 1,400 L (~400 gal) totes to be anesthetized with clove oil, another team prepared another two totes onboard the aptly named research vessel, the Cobia, and waited at the marina down the road. The initial two totes were driven over, and the fish were transferred with nets to the totes on the Cobia. Some of the fish didn’t feel like consuming the clove oil and being calm apparently, so this part was very slippery and prickly (cobia have spines) for us humans. All the fish were moved safely though, and we drove the boat out to the cage.

In order to put the fish in the submerged SeaStation cage, we crafted a “toilet” of sorts: a bucket with Continue reading →

Cacique Update

Cacique Update July 1, 2012

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Hey parents! This is Isaac and Lucy. Over the past few days students have been separated into two groups for an overnight kayaking trip and a South Eleuthera road trip and the other for SCUBA training. During our kayak trip we were fortunate enough to spot a baby octopus on the beach. It was an amazing experience to watch it change color. That remains one of the highlights of the kayak trip. Meanwhile, the other group of students was learning to SCUBA dive for the first time. We dove to Tunnel Rock and saw tons of unique species like Yellow Snapper, a tiny sea star and the most interesting of all, a Peacock flounder. This was our group’s first dive on a reef and it was a memorable experience for us all.

 

Cacique Update

Summer Term Journals

There’s a new assignment in town this Summer Term, and it’s called a journal entry! Students are being asked to regularly reflect on activities and experiences they have had throughout the day or week. These assignments allow our students to connect information across multiple disciplines, from where our food comes from on an island, to the effects of tourism and development on the surrounding ecosystems and communities. To give you a taste of what these reflections consist of we have included excerpts from two recent journals from Claire Miles and Tommy Robertshaw. Claire just returned from a South Eleuthera Road Trip, where she and 12 other students toured the Rock Sound caves and ocean hole, watched the creation of conch salad from shell to plate, and talked with local Bahamians in Deep Creek settlement. Tommy’s reflection delves into the interconnectedness of local ecosystems and tourism and development after spending the night at Palm Island beach on his two-day kayak trip. Both of these journal entries are excellent examples of the depth of reflection we hope to see in these assignments. Enjoy!

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Claire Miles

“…Along with the general negative economic trend in the world, Eleuthera is facing a problem with a declining tourism industry, an industry that much of the Bahamas depends on. This makes me wonder, what are people Continue reading →

Cacique Update

Cacique Update June 29, 2012

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During our first day of SCUBA diving, Weston and I, Lizzie, were the two Caciques. Having opposite amounts of experience, I was extremely nervous, whereas Weston was eager to jump in. The first dive did not sit well with me. I hopped out of the water and went to lunch, but could not stop thinking about my second dive in only forty-five minutes. When I reached the bottom of my second dive, my fears suddenly melted away as I explored the beautiful, Bahamian scenery. Although my SCUBA diving experience got off to a rocky start, I couldn’t help but love the beautiful scenery 25 feet below the surface.

My name is Weston Albury and I was one of the Caciques yesterday and Wednesday night. I was chosen by Tommy and Larissa for my amazing energy and uplifting attitude. As part of the SCUBA program for the first week we had a really fun couple of days. I was part of team barracuda and we had a really fun time. On the first day we did a confined water dive off the dock. After lunch we went on our first open water dive to a place called the saddle. This is the name of the dive site because the bottom is in the shape of a saddle. I loved diving in the saddle because there were these really cool walls that went up the sides of the saddle that had some juvenile fairy basslets. Today I will be SCUBA certified and can go diving with anyone!

Kayak Caciques Silas and Aiko!

While on the K1 trip we stopped and learned about mangrove trees. Continue reading →

CEI

Summer Aquaculture Intern Blog: Drew Villeneuve

Hey Everybody! My name is Drew and I am an Aquaculture intern at CEI this summer. I’m from Maryland and just graduated from high school in DC; I will be attending Bowdoin College in Maine this fall where I hope to study Biology and English. In the past I have volunteered/interned at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum and National Zoo. My specific interest is in Invertebrates, so it’s a change of pace for me to be working with fish! At the museum I worked primarily with deep water invertebrates that were pulled from Lophelia reefs in the Gulf of Mexico collected before and after the oil spill in 2010, all in hopeful preparation for some comparative analyses, and I worked at the Zoo in the Invertebrate exhibit maintaining some of their tanks. In my spare time I like to work on my marine aquarium, whitewater kayak on the Potomac, read, and explore the Appalachian mountains.

If you are not already aware, the aquaculture team (Marie, Tyler, and I) with the help of a lot of other awesome CEI people transferred our cobia to the offshore cage. For the past week or so we have been making daily dives on the cage to feed the cobia Continue reading →

Alumni

Update from Bradley Watson and Garniesha Pinder in China: Turning Straw into Bio-Gas

Yesterday we visited a Bio-Gas plant that processed mostly straw into Bio-Gas. Just as straw is more difficult to process for animals than grains, it is also harder to produce Bio-Gas from than manure or sugar filled waste water from breweries. The molecules that make straw stiff also make the energy contained in the straw difficult for the bacteria in a Bio-Digester to access and convert to methane gas and carbon dioxide. This plant takes the straw and grinds it into a fine powder and then mixes this powder with warm water before feeding the mixture into a 500 cubic meter Bio-Digester. Grinding the straw makes it easier for the bacteria in the digester to break it down. The other unique thing about this plant is that they recycle the water used in the digester. The digested straw powder is separated from the water mechanically and the water is recycled through the system. This also maintains a steady population of bacteria in the system and eliminates the need for mixing of the digester contents.

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This project’s startup was subsidized by the government and encourages farmers in this semi- rural community to transport their waste straw to the plant instead of burning it by offering them bio- gas at production cost. Continue reading →

Cacique Update

Cacique Update June 26, 2012

Hello Island School parents!

This is the first of many daily updates from the Caciques! “Cacique” is a Lucayan word for leader, so each day we pass off the Cacique role to two new student leaders of the day. Even after only two full days on campus, we’ve already had a handful of great experiences! One of the most notable was our float down the Current Cut, a small man-made channel with a quick current running through it. During the course of our dive, we encountered a plethora of colorful aquatic life including Nassau groupers, barracudas, nurse sharks, schoolmaster snapper, and jacks. George’s ankles have been severely bitten by bugs because he has no hair in said location. But don’t worry Mr. and Mrs. Reich, he is thriving in this uniquely humid environment, and is maintaining his perfectly coiffed hair which we all enjoy.

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On a different note, the morning exercise has been both challenging and exciting. Continue reading →