Long Key

This is (from left to right) Courtney, Britta, Sanchez, Lacey, and Rachel. We ran into him at Trench Town.

From left to right: Nick, Britta, Courtney, Alyssa, Liz, Ashley, Colby, Christina. We were at Trench Town just chilling after a hard day's work at the beach.

On Friday we went to Long Key to go hiking, snorkeling, and to just chill. I was in the group that went snorkeling first and it turns out the visibility was horrible. You couldn't see anything until it was literally a foot in front of your face. So we went into the shallows and searched for sea biscuits and shells instead. After an hour of that, we went to the beach on Long Key to tan and swim. Courtney brought a mushball so we got a game of 500 going, it was very entertaining.

Saturday for community outreach I went to the wellness center again. I talked to Mr. Cox again as well as a lady named Ethel. They were very talkative this time, I learned what foods they liked, what restaurants are good and what sports they watch. After community outreach, we had an invitational dinner. We invited all members of the government and education system. Everyone got all dressed up (I even showered and painted my nails). John, our marine ecology teacher, walked by all of us and said "what is that unusual clean scent I am smelling?" It was fun to see everyone with their hair done, with make up on, and in nice clothes. The dinner went well, David Bowen, the director of education for the TCI talked to us about their school system. They have primary school which goes up to 6th grade. After that they take a test, if they pass they go on to high school, if they fail, they have to re take 6th grade. High school goes from 7th grade to 11th grade, then they graduate. There is 1 community college in the TCI that they offer scholarships to for students. The deal is, they get money to go to the community school for 2 years, and then money to go to a university for another 2 years.

After the dinner a bunch of us watched a movie because we were tired, but others went out to the bar. Friday night we went out to the bar for a little while and ran into Sanchez, the chief of police's assistant, we also got stuck out in the rain which was nice. I met a dog here that is incredibly adorable. She's probably only a year old and she looks like a rotweiler terrier mix, I named her Josie. She followed me home and we fed her left over hot dogs, she was very happy. Mom, do we have room for another dog :-) ??

This week finals start for us. We have directed research (DR) for Monday and Tuesday, then study time on Wednesday and Thursday with tests on Friday, Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday. We have optional snorkels and dives every day this week to break things up, I'm quite excited. Oh, I got a 95% on my corals test, just thought I'd throw that out there. Well, that's about it for now, take care!!

-Michelle