It has been quite an eventful week. On Saturday, we took a night trip to "fourth hole" beach. We had a bonfire, sang songs, and went night snorkeling. Nick sang to us and Laura played some great folk tunes on her guitar, under the stars.
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| Marshmellow Roasting | Laura with Guitar |
The 15 kayakers who are on kayak #1 left for an eight-day kayak trip on Monday. The other 15 of us went on a trip "down island"(which is actually going up to the northern end of Eleuthera). Before we start with the story of our journey, we would like to make it clear that we are NOT Kayak #2. Our group is known as Down Island group #1. Our first stop was at a small cave about 1/2 hour away from school. We climbed down into a small cave, and swung from roots of Banyan Trees. We climbed back up and out of the cave, balancing on many unsteady rocks, using Chris Maxey as a stepping stone. After We also saw and learned about an ocean hole, which was located near the cave. To get to the hole, we had to maneuver across a wide opening of water.
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| Banyon Trees | Hanging out in the van |
The second stop was at a large Banyan tree, traditionally called the "Majumba Tree" by Island Schoolers. which was about 40 feet tall and wide. When we arrived at the tree, we were surprised to find two very large cows in front, which Davardo scared away! We climbed and hung from the spreading tendrils that hang from the tree.
Our third stop was for lunch in Governors Harbor. We ate lunch on a beautiful beach with the sparkling blue ocean behind us. From there, we walked to Cupid's Cay and visited the old jail, the oldest church in Eleuthera and the library, that was once the governor's house.
Next, our van pulled into a field of five-foot tall grass. We bush whacked through the grass, and found a small opening to a cave. We crawled inside, and explored. There was graffiti on the wall dating back to the 1800's, from people all over the world. We followed the writing along through the cave, until we could not see light anymore, but that did not stop us. We pulled out our flashlights and continued. We got to an area where we all turned off our lights, and stood in complete darkness for a couple of minutes. When we shined our lights on after standing in the dark, about fifty bats swarmed us.
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| Caving | Glass Window |
As we ventured deeper into the dark cave, we found a spot where we had to climb into another hole and wade in waist deep water. Although we were a little cold, we had a great time. We found a spot in the cave where on the wall it was written in clay "Island School Spring 2000". To add to the tradition, we started to write "Island School Fall 2000", but left some of the writing for kayak #1 to do when they go to the caves next week. After emerging from the cave, we found ourselves in the center of the field. All around us was five-foot tall grass. While whistling the Indiana Jones theme song, we trudged through the field, not completely sure of the direction of the van. Muddy and wet, but with big smiles, we found the van, loaded in and set out for our next destination.
Words can not describe what we saw at our next stop. It was a bridge called Glass window, and is the thinnest point on the island, spanning only 7-8 feet from leeward to windward sides. As we looked of the bridge at the windward side, there were great waves reaching up to 50 feet over the already high cliffs, which reached up and splashed against the bridge. While the leeward side was calm, and smooth, the windward side was a raging beast. We could not believe that some people passed over this bridge everyday and did not stop to look. This stop enabled us to better understand the geology that we have been learning in class about the formation of the islands.
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Our final stop and campsite was at Preachers Cave. This cave was found by the settlers "The Eleutheran Adventures" in 1648. These first settlers, found the cave after their ship had been wrecked on "The Devil's Backbone", which is a reef that stretches across the coast of Eleuthera. Cat B., Molly, Shira and Ben "the cook boy", prepared spaghetti and garlic bread, well their version of spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner. We ate dinner and slept in the cave, just as the settlers had hundreds of years ago. The next morning we woke up at 6:30am, ready to run and swim. We went down to a nearby beach, and first ran along the sand(which was quite an experience) and then jumped into the huge waves and Molly, Chris and Jordan taught us how to body surf.
We had an amazing time on the trip and not only saw more of Eleuthera, but also gained a better understanding of the history and geology of the island.
This installment was brought to you by, Shira Gasarch, Davardo Simmons and Dan MacAlaine (Dan is on Kayak one right now, but gives a shout out to his friends back in Philly).