Today is our last full day here (I swear I’m not freaking out about it). All morning was spent doing site and room clean-up, and maybe packing? We’re all in denial about leaving tomorrow, which is probably not very healthy. It’s been such an incredible time here and we’re all going to miss each other so much. Cleaning everything made me feel a bit better about it all, just because it gave my mind something else to focus on.

Sunrise

After lunch, we went on our long-promised trip to Long Cay. Long Cay is right in our view when we look out at the ocean from our center, and we’ve been excited to finally go there. They told us we would go to watch the sunset on the very last day of our trip, as long as we all were fairly well-behaved throughout the semester and didn’t do anything too atrocious. I’m not sure what would’ve constituted “too atrocious”, because we were all certainly menaces throughout the semester. We went out at 1:30, after lunch. There are many iguanas on the island who get fed by tourists, and so they are very friendly. When we started along the rocky path, one of them ran right at us, stopping about a foot away. If you’ve never seen an iguana run, you should definitely look it up – it’s a very strange movement that reminds me a bit of the way that Phoebe from Friends runs.

Long Cay has a high elevation and turns into cliffs on the far side. Standing along the edge was absolutely stunning, reminding me of New Zealand or Ireland. The limestone cliffs cut sharply down into the water, where waves beat against the rocks, spraying white foam into the air.

Long Cay Cliffs

My friends and I adventured around the cliffs, watching the water. There was a drastic gradient, with white and teal by the rocks. A bit farther out, there were patches of turquoise, indicating the sandy bottom. Other areas were dominated by dark blue waters that deepened to indigo in the distance. We watched a green turtle bobbing up and down on the waves for a long while, which was very cute. I stood on the edge of the cliff and spread my arms out to feel the wind, pretending I was an osprey. I could feel the spray from the ocean on my face. Even though I’ve not been looking forward to leaving, in that moment I couldn’t feel anything but happy.

Me On The Cliff

My Friends

Although it’s sad that the program is over, it feels so amazing that we did it!

When we got back on the boat, the sun was setting, casting a lavender glow over the clouds. A rain cloud was coming over South Caicos, casting a rainbow through half of the sky, while the full moon floated between the rainbow and the cliffs of Long Cay. It seemed as if South Caicos knew we were leaving, and gave us every bit of beauty it could offer for our last evening.