This March break, 12 students and two faculty members are traveling to the Bahamas to investigate the island’s varied habitats alongside educators and researchers from The Cape Eleuthera Institute (CEI) while living mindfully of their environmental impact. Please enjoy the blog post below from Selin ’27 and Reagan ’26 where they recount their final day in Eleuthera, filled with adventure, reflection, and camaraderie— exploring sandy islands, enjoying a beachside creative session, sharing a farewell feast, and ending with a heartfelt campfire gathering.
This morning, we woke up at 6:20 AM and went to high rock as our fun morning activity, which is a spot where almost everyone who visits Island School jumps off a cliff about 20 feet tall at some point in their trip. We then drove back to campus in the van for breakfast and got ready for the day.
After breakfast, we got on two boats, Mac Daddy and Mary Alice, with two coordinators, Makayla and Rachel, who brought us to one of the Schooner Cays, small uninhabited islands around Eleuthera. This piece of land was a special island made completely out of fluffy and soft sand particles called ooids. Everyone loved the sand as soon as they stepped foot on it. Some of us explored the land, others swam for about 20 minutes. We then laid on our stomachs in a circle where we learned about how the sand grows constantly and how all rocks on the island are made of compacted ooids. Rachel insisted that we whisper our secrets to the sand because the ooids would hold those secrets and stay loyal to us. We got to exfoliate our skin with the sand. We buried Tai, Cooper, and Tucker in a huge ooid hole, and finally, after rinsing off, we went back onto the boats to go back to the Island School for lunch.
After a delicious lunch, we packed our bags to get back in the van and head over to a beautiful beach. Once we arrived at the beach after a very bumpy van ride, a 15 minute walk, and a lot of sunscreen reapplied, we spread out throughout the beach. For roughly an hour at the beach, we were given the task to write or draw about our sense of identity, or Querencia. Some drew pictures of the beach or a happy place, some wrote poems, and some took the time to meditate silently. We all successfully completed the task and headed back to the van to go back to the Island School to clean up our dorm rooms.
After packing up most of our belongings, we got assigned certain jobs to clean up our rooms and bathrooms to leave it spotless and ready for the next group of students. For almost an hour, everyone was busy packing, cleaning, and getting ready for an exciting and fun evening. Everything was mostly packed and cleaned, so it was time to get ready for a luxurious dinner. Everyone got dressed up and we went to Sheryl’s, a local restaurant where we sat down for a family style dinner full of fried chicken, french fries, fish sticks, rice with peas, ribs, mac and cheese, and yummy Bahamian soda. Makayla, our program coordinator, said she’s never seen a group eat so much. We then finished the meal, thanked the cook, and headed out for the campfire. During the campfire, we played corn hole, roasted marshmallows, listened to music, and finally talked about our high tides (best moments), low tides (worst moments), seashells (a memory to take back home), along with 3 of the best or funniest moments of the trip. To end this trip, we all wrote thank you notes to Makayla for being such a wonderful mentor on this amazing trip.
Today was a great last day. We will miss everyone here and wish the best for everyone at Island School. Thank you so much to everyone who helped make this trip possible and made it a great experience!
