Spring Break Bahamas Trip

March 28, 2025

By Lucy ’25

Earlier this month, during the first week of spring break, a group of Cate students embarked on a week-long trip to Eleuthera, Bahamas. After a 3-hour bus ride to LAX, 2 flights with a 5-hour layover, and another 4-hour layover in Nassau before our short flight to Eleuthera and 30-minute shuttle to The Island School–a full 24 hours of travel–we were greeted by a swarm of eager students and a warm meal. At the end of the night, phones were collected for the week as we all tried our best to fully engage and lean into island life, building connections with those around us and making the most of our limited time in such a spectacular location surrounded by turquoise water, palm trees, and pure white sand.

Our days were filled with exploring mangroves, snorkeling, research collection in Sea Turtle Bay, exploring the island, trying new foods, traversing caves, dissecting lionfish, learning about aquaponics, and although the weather wasn’t in our favor with high winds and even thunderstorms and lightning some nights, we were still able to squeeze in a dive. We woke up early most mornings to participate in early morning activities whether that be taking part in a run-swim, running a short stretch, stopping for an exercise, then jumping into the cold early morning ocean and swimming a stretch before repeating about 5 times until we got to Christopher’s Cove where we jumped into the bay to repeat the same cycle of exercises back to campus.

On the last day, we woke up early to jump off High Rock to commemorate our trip, a tradition that every student takes part in during their time at the Island School. Eventually, at the end of the week, it felt weird to hold our devices again, we had become so accustomed to the slow pace of life at the Island School where we had truly formed memorable connections and had made irreplaceable memories.