Saturday, December 10, 2016

Down Island Trip, Day 2!

Good evening,

It was an early morning for us today. We woke up on Daddy Jo’s beach at 5:45, packed up our tents, and left the site in hopes of catching the sunrise. We drove to the Glass Window Bridge which is a piece of land between the Atlantic and Lucayan Oceans only as wide as one lane of traffic! After parking our vans on the side of the road, we climbed up death rocks, where we were hoping to see the beautiful sunrise. However, the clouds blocked the sunrise and we weren’t able to see it, though we were able to see the wavy deep blue Atlantic Ocean and the calm, shallow, greenish Lucayan Ocean. Kache, our educator-in-training, said that the drastic differences between the two waters resemble the two different ways you can deal with problems. You can either handle them with rage and destructiveness or peacefulness and calmness.

Check out the rough Atlantic on the left and the calm Lucayan on the right!


While admiring the split of the separate oceans, we ate cornflakes and Chex mix for breakfast. We dangled our feet from the edges of the road and watched the water while chowing down. After breakfast, we filled our water bottles and ventured to the historic sites of Preachers Cave and Devil's Backbone, where William Sale first encountered Eleuthera in 1648. William Sale was an Englishman living in Bermuda who was seeking religious freedom. He left Bermuda with his band of "Eleutheran Adventurers" and landed at the northern tip of the island. 

Scoping out Preacher's Cave, the site of the original settlement of the "Eleutheran Adventurers."

Following our visit there, we then were surprised with a fun-filled visit to Sapphire’s Blue Hole. A blue hole (or ocean hole) is an underwater cavern that forms in limestone rock that is exposed to the surface. There, we jumped off a 20-foot cliff into a pool filled with crystal clear, deep blue water. The best part about this was that many people conquered their fears and decided to jump even though they initially didn’t want to. 

Maggie takes the plunge into Sapphire Hole!

After countless jumps off the edge, we drove to Queen's Baths. There we witnessed the intensity of the Atlantic Ocean. We saw numerous waves’ crash into the 'death rocks' (what we call the jagged, eroded, exposed limestone that makes up much of the island) ahead of us. We were lucky enough to be there when it was low tide which allowed us to get a better view of the crashing waves and the small pools of water. The caverns here were formed from physical erosion caused by the rain and waves.

The aqua pools and bright blue Atlantic meet at the Queen's Baths!

The last place we had to visit before returning to The Island School was Gregory Town. There we got homemade ice cream from a local shop, owned by a friendly woman who gets her fruit from a local farm. The flavors included vanilla, cookies and cream, guava, and mango. Everyone enjoyed the ice cream in the heat of the afternoon. After finishing our snack, we walked down the road to a souvenir shop. We were able to buy shirts and little trinkets made by artisans on the island. From here, we walked down the road again to a local beach known as "Sea Glass Beach." We skipped rocks and looked for shells and sea glass. We stopped at the bakery AGAIN and also munched on tortillas filled with jelly along with chips and fruits for our lunch.

Sarah, Dalia, and Ellen enjoying their guava and mango ice cream!

We left Gregory Town and headed back to The Island School.  When we arrived, we unpacked and cleaned all of our camping gear and FINALLY took showers. We ended the day with a soupy dinner and our first taste of Bahamian Johnnybread, a call home, and a tutorial in homemade bracelet-making! This day marked the halfway-point of our trip and we can't believe we will be heading home to the snowy weather soon!

Signing out,

Maggie and Koron 

2 comments:

  1. Fabulous photos! Looks a lot better than 13 inches of snow. We know Devlin has been trying to reach us by phone. We'd love to say hi! After 7 is usually good... or we're out shobvelling...

    ReplyDelete