Day 6 of living in San Salvador. Today was a busy day, but it seems that our trip is sadly at the halfway point. It doesn't seem like it has been almost a full week since we flew into Nassau and that next Saturday will mark our departure back to the United States. I know many of us have had a hard time adapting to the changes and the toll this environment has placed on us. For example we will have to adapt to starting off the day with the full house that is having the groups from Georgia, Florida, and Connecticut all under one roof. While the dorms feel more lively, the routines we had in place will need to accommodate the limited number of showers, bathroom stalls, and seating areas during meal times. However, at least when each group goes their separate ways after eating in the cafeteria, things feel a bit closer to normal.
For todays activities we were able to feast our eyes on a variety of things.
While a lot of us study the effects of climate change and human interactions on the environment, it hits a lot harder when you get to see the effects first hand in parts of the world that you normally don’t get to see. With us being on San Salvador, a historic but vulnerable site, we have been able to learn of the myriad of consequences that affect this place alone. While many of the beaches and reefs we have seen so far were to the North, West, or South parts of the island our first excursion of the day was traveling to the East side of the Island. This is where the ocean currents make the highest amount of contact with the Bahamas and bring materials from different parts of the world, but unfortunately also erodes the shorelines the most.
Seeing the expanse of trash on the beach and rocks that has worked its way from all over and accumulated such as shirts, tires, and countless amounts of rope and other items.
It's sad knowing that even if we could collect and relocate all of the trash that is visible, it wouldn’t stop the damage caused by the countless plastic nanoparticles and other contaminants that will continue to plague the regions long after we’ve been buried.
On a happier note, during our second excursion we went to Manhead Cay island, swimming of course, and to attempt to see the endangered population of iguanas that reside there. I'm glad there are still parts of the bahamas that are uninhabited and allow for the wildlife to remain less disturbed by human activity. I was unable to locate a single iguana but the experience of saying that I swam to an island will stick with me for a while after this trip. Even though it seemed like the journey would take forever due to me needing to stop swimming frequently.
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