Foxtrot 2 & Sierra 2 Day 9: Oh Mangroves, My Mangroves
July 25, 2016
Today started out with a breakfast of scrambled eggs. After that, everyone went to shore for a hike at theBitter End. The students got some exercise and great pictures from the top of the mountain that overlooks the resort. After, the students had free time on land to use small boats, hang out on the beach, and explore the resort. They had lunch at the restaurant on shore and enjoyed getting to hang out with students from other boats. In the afternoon, we had a marine biology lesson on mangrove trees and the ecosystem services they provide. Lindley, one of our captains, used items from our boats to represent different services mangroves provide such as small fish nursery, filtering trash, filtering water, stopping land erosion, etc. The students had to guess what each item represented and were really engaged in the lesson.
Afterwards, the students went into the mangrove forest and did a trash pick up for some community service hours. The students had fun in the mud flats and many of the students painted their bodies with mud during the trash pick up. The students swam back to boats and started preparing for chili cook off. On Chili cook off night, the staff tell the kids the tale of a plane crashed in the sea, which Mike Liese swam out to and saved everyone’s their lives. In return, they shared their super secret chili recipe with Mike which he put in the Sail Caribbean cook book. Each year, the Chileans come out to our boats to do a taste testing of the chili and boats compete to have the best tasting chili, the best smelling chili, and the best presentation. Some students on Moselle really enjoyed the event and had a lip synching performance complete with a student singing Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking ball”. The staff boat staff came over dressed up in costumes and pretended to be Chileans for the performance. The kids had so much fun with planning their performance and the night was full of laughter.
