Cape Eleuthera

 Tuesday dawned windy and the rest of the week was to be just as windy so we decided to throw in the towel and head to our ultimate destination, Cape Eleuthera. It was only an hour and a half away and the wind was at our backs so it was a nice cruise.

You can tell from the flag & palm trees just how windy it was.

Sadly, there is quite a bit of construction going on so we can't see the ocean or sunset from the back of our boat. Still, it's a great place to be.

We decided to celebrate our arrival with dinner at the resort's nice little restaurant that overlooks the ocean.

Locals rave about this dessert, "Guava Duff". We had never had it so we tried it. Interesting. Sort of like a dense bread pudding with guava and a heavenly warm rum cream sauce. Yum.

Wednesday we took the dinghy out exploring. Didn't find much but it was nice to get out.

Yes, when we aren't working on the boat or doing 2 weeks worth of stored laundry, life is pretty tough!

Thursday, we met up with a couple of other boaters & walked the 1.5 miles over to the Island School to see what it was about. 

We were surprised at both the size and the quality of the school. Though they have everything from pre-K to PHD students, their age focus is high school sophomores who come from all over the US and the world for a semester to study everything from marine biology to sustainable living and they get full credit at their home school.

Here's a link to their website:   https://islandschool.org/

100% of everything here is based on sustainable living.

The effluent from their septic tank is used to water and fertilize their "poo garden". These bananas are supposedly some of the sweetest you will ever eat.

Notice the wind turbine in the background.

This bridge over the mangrove pool that connects the two parts of the campus is made from "rumber" - - recycled tires and some kind of wood pulp that is supposed to last 50 years.

All of the wood for their buildings, beds and even desks comes from the local Australian pine casuarina trees. Most of it was crafted in their local wood shop.

They grow tilapia and koi fish. They use their effluent to fertilize their hydroponic garden and, of course, eat them too.

They use coconut husks to provide a seed bed that floats in the fish poo in their hydroponics garden. Their vegetables and herbs all looked amazing.

They have college interns from all over the US and Canada who spend a year here working and studying. This gal was from Novia Scotia.

Even the teacher's lounge was beautifully made locally with casuarina wood.

The gal on the right was the school's nurse. She had been an ER nurse from Maine and had worked for a doctor who had been to the school. Interestingly, she didn't know of his involvement until after she applied for the position.

Notice how neatly the garden is organized into raised rows held in place by conch shells.

They raise, slaughter and eat 2 pigs a year.

The walls of the woodshop were lined with bottles to let the light in.

Just about every inch of space on the building roofs was taken up by solar panels.

All in all, we were quite impressed with the school. All the kids were out on a week expedition. Half were kayaking down the island some 30 miles. The other half were taking vans and visiting smaller settlements on the island. The purpose was to acquaint the kids with the islanders and to help them understand how locals live.

This is our last blog entry for a while. We'll be back in early June with our kids and grandkids to go spelunking, boating, scuba diving and chillin'.  See you then!