Mangrove Party!

Hello, 

We were promptly awoken at 6:00am to be submerged in cold, morning water (it was a good way to wake up though!!). Really, we woke up at 6am, put on our suits, and then were handed a snorkel, mask, and fins. Then we made our way to the marina to take our swim test. The students got their ‘buddy pairs’ (always swim with a buddy!) and then swam out to Stan, Whit, and Kache to tell them a strange fact about ourselves. Afterwards, we learned the basics of snorkeling, and went on a short snorkeling trip to the end of the marina. 

Acing the swim test to our teachers out by the dive flag!

After a scrumptious breakfast of cereal, yogurt, and breakfast pizza (with eggs, cheese, and sausage), we split up into groups to get a tour of CEI and the Island School. We split into groups and learned about septic tanks, aquaponics, permaculture, and all the other ways the Island Schools works to preserve resources. After the tour we had a J-Party (…Jeopardy) between the two groups as a fun little way to review. 

Stan shows us how the lettuce grows in the aquaponics beds- with roots submerged in fish poop water!

As soon as lunch was over, we all grabbed our snorkeling gear to explore the mangroves. Two minutes down the road is an amazing, lazy-river style mangrove habitat. The tides going in and out make it seem like a lazy river; we can just put our faces in the water and watch as the water pulls us along! As we snorkeled and drifted, we saw sergeant majors, beaugregories, checkered puffers, and even a stingray!  

Gather round ye merry red mangrove!

We learned about the mangrove environment, and how they help fish, birds, the land, and much more. We saw the variety in mangroves, from red (pointy head!), to black (salty back!), and even white (hold on tight!). Once we had reached the end of our drift down, we marched on in hopes of seeing a baby shark. Juvenile lemon sharks are known to live in mangrove habitats. Instead, we faced treacherous quicksand (thick sediment) that consumed our shoes. Nevertheless, we prevailed and had a great journey through the strange, new habitat. The tide then changed, and we were able to drift back to our starting point. There we played a fun mangrove-based game, kind of like sharks and minnows. Michael was the ‘conservationist’ and the rest of us were propagules (baby mangroves) and we had to try to ‘drift’ past Michael, lest turning into adult mangroves. 

After returning, we had roughly an hour of exploration time for us to do whatever we wanted. Many of us took much-needed showers, while others took walks on the beach, or happily napped away. Around 6:00pm, our current Caciques, Maggie and Aryeh, nominated the next two: Michael and Ellen. We then headed off to a wonderful dinner of fried chicken, rice, tofu strips, and other assorted goodies. 

Then came the highlight of the day: bonding with our Canadian neighbors, the students from Trinity College School. After getting into a large circle of 35 students total, we silently arranged ourselves in a line alphabetically by first name. After that, each Hawken student paired up with a Trinity student, to find something strange they had in common. We ended the bonding session with an exhilarating game, called Birds and Perches. Evan and his Trinity partner won the game, beating all 17 other teams! Finally we sat down to take our nightly quiz, and ended the day with a nice game of Uno in the Octagon. 

Signing off - Caroline and Nihaal