Weekend Daytrip: Dragonera Island

What a weekend! After spending Saturday with our host families at beaches, restaurants, pools, and playing games, the Spanish STEM program left early Sunday morning to go to Dragonera Island. After boarding a charter bus with all of our friends and riding through some villages and mountains, we arrived at Sant Elm, a beach town on the farthest west coast of Mallorca. Once there, we caught a boat to take us the last 15 minutes to Dragonera Island. The boat ride was like something out of a movie! We spent a lot of the ride trying to take pictures of the clear turquoise water and the rocky cliffs of the approaching island. 

On Dragonera Island, we started our adventure by walking up to the "faro" - the lighthouse on the northern tip. We saw enough small lizards (between 3-6 inches) to make us wonder how so many lizards could even exist, but then we learned that even though the island is just over one square mile in area, there are over one million lizards!!! At the lighthouse, some of us gently played with the lizards by trying to get them to crawl onto hands or shoes. One crawled onto a students hand, up his arm, and onto his back! From the vantage point of the lighthouse, we also got to see lots of the native Mallorcan gulls, plenty of fish far below us, and even a mystery animal (we think it was a porpoise) jump out of the water before diving deep again.

After our hike to the lighthouse and a chance to sit in the shade and eat a snack, we went down to the cove to do some species identification and snorkeling with our fantastic biology teacher, Paula. We split into two groups to do some shoreline identification and some snorkeling observation and we ended up seeing many things we've been talking about in class! Our only unexpected moment of the day came when a few of us got stung by some jellyfish, but luckily after putting on some cream that our Program Leaders had in the first aid kit, the stings felt a lot better. Nature is so fun to observe up close, but this definitely reminded us that the planet we're learning about is so much bigger than us and can sometimes come with risks! We also got the chance to learn about the science behind jellyfish stings and that the type of jellyfish and the pH of the sting can have an impact on what the most effective medical response can be - unlike what some of us thought, "just pee on it" is usually not the right answer ;)

After working together to finalize our running journal of species we've identified, we headed back to Sant Elm on the boat to have some refreshing drinks in the shade and then some free time in the main square and beach of the town. Many of us went swimming again (this time in mostly jelly-free waters!), and some of us opted to get some ice cream and walk around shops under some shade. By the time we boarded the bus to go home, we were all exhausted but satisfied with our day of adventure, enjoyment, and application of our skills.

Tomorrow we get to go to the aquarium and put even more of our identification skills to use! Maybe we'll even see some of the less common sea critters when we go to Alcúdia later this week...check back at the end of the week to find out!