TaborTalk Blog

Tabor students are in the Bahamas at the Gerace Research Center in San Salvador for the last week of the year working on the coral nursery they began last spring. In March 2019, we constructed two coral trees: pvc pipes connected to look like branches of a tree where we hung coral fragments of Elkhorn and Staghorn coral we found on the seafloor while snorkeling. It is our hope that the fragments will remain alive and grow large enough so that we can attach them to the seafloor and grow out, restoring areas of damaged reef in the Bahamas. We will maintain and multiply our coral trees over two weeks each year, in December and in March, and hope to "plant" our first new reef restoration in a year or two. Unfortunately, strong storms are our enemy in this effort as we discovered one of our two trees from 2019 destroyed when we arrived.  Read on to learn about the efforts of the December team who arrived for a week of field research on December 28.

DAY 1

We have successfully arrived in Nassau at the comfortable hour of 11:30 PM. Our students immediately jumped into the hotel pool for a refreshing dip. We will begin early tomorrow with breakfast and then off to San Salvador Island.

DAY 2

We arrived in San Salvador a little late due to delays.  We are learning that 'island time' is 'island time'.  We went for a dip in the aquamarine tropical waters, had a nice dinner, and spent the evening setting up our lab, going over the mission goals, and playing mad gab for a while.

Day 1-Thursday, March 14, 2019

We are tired! We left Marion this morning at 5:00am and it is now 10:00pm. In between those two times, we all made our flights, we lost a bat along the way, but was retrieved and handed to us just as we were pulling out of Orlando Int'l Airport. We drove for 30 minutes, stopped at Chipotle/Chik-Fil-A and had lunch, drove the remaining hour, arrived at 3:00pm, checked into our rooms, practiced at 4:00pm, had boxed dinners and changed into our game uniforms at 6:00pm, played our first game at 7:00pm in Holman Stadium vs. Loomis Chaffee School, returned to our rooms at 9:30pm, greeted by Mr. Heaslip with 10 pizzas...

This morning, members of the Tabor Academy sailing team departed for Charleston, SC to take part of the Interscholastic Sailing Association (ISSA) Fleet Racing Nationals for the Clifford Mallory Trophy.  The Mallory trophy is high school sailing’s oldest trophy dating back to 1930 when Headmaster Lillard and others started the sport.  Of the twelve founding schools, only Tabor, St George’s, The Hotchkiss School, and Choate Rosemary Hall still remain out of the 500+ high school programs that exist nation-wide today. 

In May 2016, James Caple and I are starting our quest to row across the North Atlantic Ocean from Cape Cod, MA to Ireland. This distance equates to approximately 2800 nautical miles through one of the most notoriously difficult oceans in the world. Just ask anyone who was on the Titanic! Upon successful completion of our row, we will be the first American pair, the first ever mixed pair, and for me, the first American Woman, to complete an ocean row across this challenging route.

After 27 years of teaching at Tabor Academy, I had the good fortune to receive and enjoy a fall semester sabbatical, which I have dubbed my “Seabbatical.” My Seabbatical has provided me the time and space to travel, write, volunteer, collaborate and spend time with my daughter. I’ve been asked countless times, “What have you been doing on your sabbatical?” My typical reply is, “ALL of the things that I wouldn’t have time for when I am working:”    

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