Turtley Awesome - Day 05

According to Mr. Cawley, no marine science class has ever had two sleep-in days in their time at the Island School, yet there we were, more rested than ever. After waking up at 7:30, we were greeted by no morning exercise, and we instead went straight to the flagpole (without a flag, thanks to Emma and Gabe). After singing the national anthem to a pole in the sky, we proceeded to chores and breakfast, as is usual. As always, breakfast was delicious and hearty, with English muffins, poached, eggs, and ham. The oranges and grapefruits were as delicious as ever, so far superior to those found non-native to Cleveland.

Right, so after breakfast we cleaned up our dorms, but seriously, to quote someone from Star Wars (I think), “I hate sand. It’s rough, scratchy, and gets everywhere.” That’s not the quote but you get my point. There was no hope of getting all off the floor. After our chores, we went to the boathouse, and had our first pushups of the trip, because we didn't all make it to the boathouse by 915am. Not gonna lie, I liked finally getting to do some pushups though (to clarify, this is Evan writing, NOT EMMA).

We then spent the next eternity unraveling a 30 mile long net that we would later use to trap turtles for research purposes only (hopefully, the TFBI (turtle federal bureau of investigation) won’t come track us down). We had to make sure that there weren’t any holes that the turtles could escape through. Then, in another eternity, we rolled it back up like a giant scroll/ the Torah and headed to the vans. An hour long ride full of good music (and some that Spencer picked out) later, we arrived at a mangrove creek to go TURTLING!!!!!!

You would think that there are not gonna be jellyfish in a creek. False. Pretty much every step unearthed stinging monsters that really only hurt for about 2 minutes. That said, it was still pretty painful carrying said 30 mile long net 200 (600) meters into the creek system. The ten of us manning the net spread it across the mouth of the creek to trap some turtles while the other mob started splashing down towards us with the fury of 20 sunburned students (or the force of a great typhoon, whichever sounds more intimidating.) Suddenly, there was a flash in the net and TURTLESSSS!!

After gathering all seven (7) turtles into a closed net, a few of the more experienced turtle catchers began form tackling the turtles as they swam by. Once we had all of them, we headed (through even more jellyfish/ literal devils) to a small inlet where we (named) measured, weighed, photographed, and tagged each turtle to add to their database. The coolest part of this whole thing is that the research we did today actually contributing to the world-wide/Bahamas-wide database of Green Sea Turtle population and habits. We also got to hold some pretty dope turtles.

Even if you think that’s cool, we were actually helping the researchers at CEI to roll out a new method of turtle identification that doesn’t involve giving them “ear piercings,” a facial and flipper recognition database that could be added to even by a snorkeler passing by a turtle in his/her adventures. So, it really felt like we were doing something super important. After a much-needed lunch of sandwiches, fruit, and cassava chips that completely smacked, we trudged back through the warzone of Cassiopeia Jellyfish venom to the safety of our armored vans.

The music on the way back was 4000000x better because Colin (our lovely instructor) was in charge of the throwback tunes. An hour of carpool karaoke later, we immediately hopped in the showers to try to get rid of the residual stings. For exploration time, we were all pretty tired of feeling like prunes, so we opted to go for a bike ride instead. The bike ride, compared to the ride in the van, felt like it took .01 milliseconds.

We reached civilization (aka the only convenience store on Eleuthra) and immediately devoured some not sustainably sourced and processed SUGAR! After getting that yummy sweetness, we continued biking around the marina and watching the sunset, that is, until I felt a large bump and almost fell of my bike (which really should’ve been retired a couple years ago). The chain had completely fallen off, and it took Mr. C, the expert cyclist, almost ten minutes to get it back on.

All the while, the rest of us belted out some classic Island-y tunes. We headed back to the dorms to get ready for dinner, at which we enjoyed a tasty meal of corn soup and bread (no soup for you though). After dancing to some legendary tunes during dish crew, we headed to the Octagon for a lesson on our carbon footprints. Be ready for your kids to return home taking Navy Showers and turning off all the lights, even when you’re still in the room.

Now, we anticipate that this will be annoying, but you all will have a lot of time to appreciate how much you’re helping the environment while sitting in the dark.

Exaggeratedly yours,

Emma and Evan (The better of the two) (ignore him, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about) (False.) (My parents say I’m special) (Well the world’s a difficult place, so you might want to find yours) (Whatever, I’m still cooler because I held the FIRST TURTLE) (You got me there☺)