As the mid-terms are drawing near, Kristy pointed out to us today that we are four days away from the midpoint of the semester. The work has been building up and we are looking forward to a pleasant change with the eight-day kayak trips, starting this Monday. While one group is out paddling, the other half of the school enjoys a jaunt "down island" to spend the night in a cave on the north end of the island. Recently, several groups have been meeting with certain village elders from surrounding settlements to begin their life history projects.

Kristy Skinning Conch	Laura cracking conch

Friday the 13th the Island School celebrated Conch Day. The days activities included: a history of conch discussion with Farmer Brown, a local conch fisherman, a conch anatomy class facilitated by the Conch research group, conch cracking class where we learned how to pull off the conch's skin with our teeth. At the close of the day, we all enjoyed Mooch, Sheryl and Becca's delectable conch fritters and salad.

Last Saturday night we had a dance party at the Bull Dolphin in the Cape Eleuthera Marina. Ben was the DJ while Brittany and Kat tore up the dance floor. The faculty was asked to wear their own variation of silly island clothing. Christian was caught dancing with a broom while Andrew danced the tango with Tango, Casuarina's Chesapeake Bay retriever.

Dancing Fools

The research groups have had many adventures this week. While at Waterford Creek, the Mangrove groups van got stuck in the sand and they had to do some emergency digging. The Artificial Reef group has been placing the reefballs in the water near the school. Thursday night they came back exhausted from an outing in choppy seas.

Aquaculture is preparing for the daunting task of putting the fish in the open water cages in the cut along side the school while Conch group has discovered several sea grass patches and is ready to begin their tag and recapture methods.

All in all life at the Island School has been moving very fast as always, and we continue to work to our potential and are anticipating the arrival of Parents Weekend. Parents, don't forget care packages are always welcome and much appreciated. We love and miss you all so much!!!!!

Later!
Kat, Brittany, and Andrew
(Nella's AWESOME advisees)

Mangrove Research	Artifical Reef