Greetings from the Island School!

My name is Rebecca Mason and I am doing this week's update here on Cape Eleuthera. My advisor is Chris Fanjul and the past three weeks, or so, have been great getting to know him and many fun things about him. Brad Harris and Kate Zultner are also in Chris's adviser group, but they are out kayaking. That's them below.

Paddling out	Brad taking on Kayaking

Starting off, we found out our research projects. We will be spending the semester researching, experimenting, and preparing in order to give our final presentations on May 4 to local Bahamian officials as well as teachers and scientists. These research projects are: Aquaculture, Mangroves, Coastal Management, and Reef survey. Instead of just learning all about our specific projects and presenting results to each other, we will be sharing our results with the local community. The students will be figuring out ways to improve aquaculture by: attempting to lessen the effects of over-fishing, to making reef balls in order to restore the coral reef ecology, and even figuring out a way to strengthen the Island School's own coastline. We will be working hard on these projects and will keep you all updated with new information.

Beating back the waves

Some hands-on learning/work that many students participate in daily is collecting larval Grouper. During morning exercise as well as our mornings off, two students have gone to collect larval grouper or any other animal from our nets off the coast. Grouper are born usually around the first full moon between December and January. Then, after three weeks or so, the small Grouper are carried towards the island by the current. It is important to see how many larval Grouper are being carried here so that we can find out how the population is doing. This morning I was able to go out on the boat and even though there were no Grouper to be found, we found many other fish such as small Flounder. There are many eels and shrimp as well and we add them to our aquarium which is what we call our live television. One really cool thing that was in the net today was a baby sea horse. I was given permission to keep in the dorm and raise until he is big enough to put in our aquarium. His name is George.

Jenny and Rebecca at Half Sound

After a busy week of academics, Friday afternoon we had activities. Teachers offered different things to do during this time such as snorkelling, sailing, and swimming lessons. These all offered much relaxation and everyone slept well on Friday night. Saturday afternoon the whole school piled into our vans and made our way through Rock Sound to Half Sound. The trip there was very amusing because the path for the last few miles is about four feet wide and overgrown with trees. Here we spent the day on the beautiful sandy beach snorkeling, playing Frisbee and relaxing. We had a scrumptious cook-out dinner with the world's best hamburgers and veggie-burgers and then relaxed around the campfire 'till ten.

Waiting for Dinner

Tuesday we split up into our kayak rotations. Tuesday morning ten students left to kayak around the point for three days. While ten of us are away, the other twenty are divided, half doing academics and the other doing SCUBA and getting DAN and NAUI certified. Friday morning and then again Monday morning, the groups will all rotate.

Finally, today our community outreach children from a local middle school came for their second visit to The Island School. The students are working with Island School students to make a book with information on Grouper, Conch, Mangroves, or Reefs. Some of the seventh graders went snorkelling off the beach and they really enjoyed it.

Hydration

One last fun thing that went on this week was Island School soccer. Tuesday morning for morning exercise, the whole school joined in for a little game of Island School soccer. The game somewhat resembles soccer with a little twist of inter-teamwork as well as jumping into the water after out-of-bounds balls. Even thought my team lost 2-0, I am looking forward to a rematch next week!

Hope everything is well with you all at home. SEND MAIL!!!