Vans, airplanes, and trucks, oh my!
Well, Bahamas 2024 is successfully on San Salvador with all of our students and faculty and all of our luggage. It took three days, but we made it. There were lots of contingency plans (plans C, D, 鈥� maybe J?) along the way potentially involving splitting the group to multiple intermediate destinations, but in the end after a cancelled flight, we all drove in two vans from Wittenberg to Charlotte, where we stayed overnight and caught a crack of dawn flight to Nassau on Friday morning. Immigration and Customs were easy, and the porters helped us with the bags to BahamasAir where we checked them in, got through security, and had an hour or so for a relaxing (finally) lunch before the flight to San Salvador. That flight was uneventful, with great island views along the way, and it was wonderful to land on San Salvador after so much uncertainty. Then the other shoe dropped鈥攐nly two of our checked bags had made the trip with us. Fortunately, BahamasAir sent a special flight to bring all the luggage (not just ours) they鈥檇 left, so everyone was reunited with their bags Saturday at 1:15 pm. Thanks to all of the folks at Witt who helped make this work鈥攖o MdM and Katherine who flew down to Charlotte to retrieve the vans, and thanks to Kim at Bourke Travel for doing behind the scenes magic to bring the group back together after the airline broke us apart. Thanks to the students for rolling with us through all the craziness and trusting that we鈥檇 make it work.
This morning we experienced our first GRC breakfast and the pancakes were as wonderful as I remembered them. We then went to the beach for some much-deserved swimming to experience the ocean as a group for the first time. We saw magnificent frigatebirds, white-tailed tropicbirds, and a plover, plus some anemones in the rocks, and had fun playing in the water since we didn鈥檛 have our snorkel gear yet.
This afternoon we had a great time circumnavigating the island by truck to give the students the lay of the land as we get started. We saw a lighthouse, mangroves, the beautiful blue water of Pigeon Creek, old plantation ruins, and some future snorkeling sites. Tonight in class we talked about the history of San Salvador and the Gerace Research Centre. We ended with a session cleaning everybody鈥檚 mask and learning how to adjust and put on our masks and snorkels, and breathing through the snorkels. Everyone is very excited for our first snorkeling lesson tomorrow morning and a great snorkel at the Government Dock tomorrow afternoon. Student blogs will begin tomorrow鈥攚atch for them here, and we鈥檇 love to have you say hi in the comments below each day鈥檚 post!
Jim Welch, Program Director