Day 264, Thursday March 13th – a very interesting
tour
We awake to a very windy day, the wind are going to clock today from South West, and through
West to North as yet another cold front passes us. (Note they aren’t actually
cold, just unsettled winds that do a full 360 degrees within about 36 hours, we
can’t really complain because we know everyone back home got nailed everytime
we have a cold front). We both slept
well even with the wind starting to build.
Dawson is up at 6:30 to catch his favorite radio show and by 8:30 is
heading out for a run and Julie is going off to finish the laundry, just
doesn’t seem fair.
Dawson’s plan for the run was to head South East towards an
old resort development project which as many in the Bahamas just didn’t get
finished. The plan was to run about 4 km
out and then 4 km back but there are so many paved roads, power lines that
after the 6 km mark Dawson is starting to wonder about the route back. It comes to the point where he is noting the
location of the sun and the direction of the wind to give him some guidance on
the way back to the boat as he has taken so many turns on the run. He also starts marking each turn he makes to
ensure he is not running in a circle. It
all worked out it just turned out to be a 12 km run instead of the planned 8
km.
Dawson arrived back at the marina just in time to assist
Julie in folding the clothes and bringing them back to the boat, while Julie hung
out near the electricity to complete some blogging. By 11 the wind had picked up in velocity as
they clocked with the winds reaching over 30 knots in the gusts. By 2 pm the winds calmed down so we decide to
take a walk.
Dawson earlier in the day had talked to a young woman at the
store who was a teacher at the Island School located just up the road from the
marina. Lynn of Windward had mentioned
they had taken a tour of the school a couple of years ago and found it quite
interesting. During the conversation
with the teacher Dawson confirmed that the school was still doing tours and to
just walk up and ask for one. The school
is located just over a kilometer from the marina.
En route to the store a fellow who we had met the day before
at the resort pulls up to see if we want a ride. We decline but we talk for a while and it
turns out he had just rescued two woman
in a car who had spent an hour lost in the roads of the old resort where Dawson
had gotten confused this morning. He
guides them back out to the highway which is when we meet up with him.
The facility is actually 2 different entities, the Island
School which is a high school and the Cape Eleuthera Institute which is a
research station. The teacher had
mentioned to check in at the Institute for the tour. We got to the institute just after 2:30 and
were immediately welcomed at the door of the office. We asked about a tour and were told just to
wait a couple of minutes and a tour guide would be over. Soon a young man by the name of Matt joined
us and took us for the tour. Matt is
from Simcoe Ontario and had just graduated from Guelph University in the spring
of 2013. The concept of the Island
School and the Institute is to promote sustainability and to provide training
and work opportunities to young people and locals. The high school offers semesters for grade 11
and 12 students (mostly from North America) and the Institute is the body that
does research and supports the high school.
It was an excellent tour.
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| Island School Boats and Boat House |
The school and the research center are focused on
Sustainable development, and have taken it a step further by attempting to be
totally self-sufficient. They are
working on combining Aqua Culture/Hydroponics
where they will raise fish for the table and then take the nutrient rich water
from the fish farm and feed it into hydroponics where they will grow all their
own vegetables. Right now the fish farm
is in the research stage and the hydroponics is delivering all the lettuce for
the dining room. It is quite an
undertaking. The school offers a full
high school program with emphasis on work in the field, for example part of
biology class would be working in the hydroponics. The school is fairly self sufficient on
electricity having fully embraced solar panel/solar water heating and they operate a large wind turbine. They even operate a small farm raising pigs,
each semester they kill and butcher a pig with all the students in attendance
so they know where pork comes from.
After the tour we head back to the marina and arrive just in
time for happy hour with our fellow sail boaters. We enjoy ourselves and of coarse eat too much
which leads to dinner being cancelled once again. We tell the other boaters, Rick and Eva from
Calypso and Randy and Lee of Silver Maple about the tour, while they tell us
about their adventures. By 6:30 it is getting windy and a little cold as we are
all dressed in our shorts and short sleeves shirts. We head back to our respective boats for the
evening.
We have a pot of coffee and play a couple games of Kings
Cribbage, but before bed we look up the Island school on the web. They have a very good website and also quote
the price for a single semester - $27,500 for a four month term. Wow.
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| Cape Eleuthera Marina |
Cheers
Dawson and Julie
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