Saturday

5:30 AM view from our dorms

6:30 AM view from our dorms (right before it began raining)

Today, our last full day in the Bahamas, was quite a spectacular day.  We began our day with morning exercise in the rain.  Everyone was a little soggy and cold, but we drove to High Rock (a small cliff that is perfect for jumping off of and into the ocean) and quickly realized what a special day this was going to be.

The site of High Rock alone is spectacular, with sweeping views of the ocean.  As the rain cleared and we began to leap one by one into the water, a rainbow appeared.  Not only was there a rainbow, but it was a double rainbow!! Wow! 

Several of us jumped multiple times, some simply climbed down to enjoy the water, and some snorkeled along the cliffs. Everyone had a great time, however they chose to enjoy the place.

 Perhaps the coolest thing we saw all week was a small purplish octopus that had crawled up onto the rocks on the shore.  As it turns out, Octopuses will crawl onto land sometimes after mating when they are in a bit of a mental fog.  This happens soon before they die.  We got a chance to look very closely at the Octopus before Jen got to release it back into the water.

After breakfast, we loaded up in the vans and headed down island a little bit to explore the mangrove ecosystem on the coast.  As we waded along the beach we saw 3-4 Nurse sharks lazing about in the shallow water.  Nurse sharks are very mild mannered, so we were able to get quite close before they swam away.  It turns out that nurse sharks use the mangrove ecosystem to mate!

We continued to wade up into the mangroves and learned how to tell different species of mangroves apart.  We can all now identify red, black, and white mangroves by their leaves, bark, root systems, and other characteristics.   We even learned that mangroves reproduce sexually and produce live fully-formed baby trees!  How neat.

Plenty of species use the mangroves as shelter, including many fish.  Fish use the mangrove coast almost like a nursery to raise young.

Snorkeling in the mangroves

Puffer fish!  Check out their orange eyes.

As we waded back to the vans, we saw two more nurse sharks.   We drove further down-island to eat lunch and spend some quality time on the beach.  We relaxed for several hours and hung out in the waves.  Sadly there was TONS of plastic debris floating in the water due to the cove-like structure of the bay we were in.  We tried our best to pick out as much as we could and learned a valuable lesson about plastic in our world’s oceans.

After our afternoon at the beach, we headed back to campus to clean out the dorms, pack, and eat dinner.  We finished off the evening with a bonfire (led by the interns/ peacocks) on the beach and SMORES!!!!

Our last Bahamian sunset

Tomorrow we are leaving at 6:45 AM for the Rock Sound airport to fly back to CT.  See you soon!

Friday morning

Breakfast was at The Glass Bridge, which is the narrowest point on the island.  The Glass Bridge used to be a natural arch, but it was destroyed by a hurricane.  We feasted on cornflakes and granola, then scrambled up the cliffs to take in the view.  On one side we could see the grey waters of the Atlantic Ocean and on the other side of the bridge lay the calm blue waters of the Caribbean.

 Breakfast on the rocks looking out over the Atlantic

 Looking at atlantic side

 Looking at he Caribbean side (2 different blues!)

Sam points out Atlantic on her right and Caribbean on her right.

Our next stop was at Preacher’s cave— the northernmost point on Eleuthera.  This was where the first white colonists of Eleuthera originally settled.  We checked out the beach where they had shipwrecked and then battled the mosquitoes in the cave they used as shelter.  It had a natural altar at the back in which sermons were held for more then a century. (this was over a 100 mile journey from our start!)

 Ricky reading the story of the Preacher's Cave.

Next we took a short hike to Blue Hole— a big circular hole in the limestone.  We jumped in one by one and enjoyed the beautiful clear blue water. 

We stopped again for lunch in Governor’s harbor, and this time, we were given a little bit of time to explore our surroundings.  Gorgeous!

Governor's Harbor  rest and lunch spot mid-island.

Town Library

Hanging in the Library

After pulling over again to buy some ice cream and gifts for our parents and families, we arrived at our last stop— Ocean Hole (another swim spot formed the same way as blue hole). 

All in all, we had a spectacular camping trip.  We may all be a little smellier and itchier than we were before Thursday, but we saw some pretty awesome sights and really bonded as a group.

Our final activity for the day (once we got back to campus) was to watch a super cool documentary about humans and their interactions with the oceans of the world.  More pictures and stories to follow soon!