Arrival at Cape Eleuthera Institute

    Wind whistles through the palm trees. Waves crash on the beach right behind me. I am sitting in a small octagon building writing to all of you.
    My first taste of the Bahamas was the steel drum band
playing in the airport immigration check point in Nassau.
Not many people get to go through customs with such
ambiance. The view from the airplane was mesmerizing.
Islands dotted the ocean. The water was so clear that I could see the bottom of the ocean in places.
    I met the rest of the EarthWatch team at the Rock Sound Airport. I was one of the lucky ones to have my bags. We drove down to the southern tip of Eleuthera Island. Along the road, I saw houses of every candy color: purple, pink, lime green, yellow, orange, blue. Every house is one story. The trees are not very tall either. I imagine that they are built that way to withstand hurricane season.
    I will be staying in a dorm room with six bunk beds at the Island School. This place is completely sustainable. The water is collected in tanks under the buildings. Solar panels and wind turbines power the electricity and even give power back to the grid. After dinner, I scraped my food into three different compost piles. High school students from around the world study at the Island School for a semester. The website is http://www.islandschool.org/  It is an amazing program. The Island School poses some interesting questions:
   

What if your science class involved doing research that mattered to a nation?

What if your campus was not only your classroom, but your home?

What if sustainability was not a club, but a way of life?

What if it was more important to ask questions than to answer them?

What if your education was not about what you know, but what you discover?

   Tomorrow I will be getting wet. We have to pass a swim test and check out our snorkel gear. I will learn which fish will be my assigned fish to count. Each of us will get a patch reef named after us. Cross your fingers that I get a good one! I will leave you with a photo from my door and my first challenge. 

Conch shells cover the beach. What can you learn about conch shells? 

    http://www.communityconch.org/why-conchs/conch-facts/

    http://www.bnt.bs/UserFiles/HTMLEditor/conch.pdf