Move to Maui a big adventure for new Maui Prep teacher

The Border Family — Carolyn and Chris with sons Jacob (standing) and Andrew — visit the Maui Preparatory Academy campus.
NAPILI — An adventure — that is how the Border Family describes the past eight years, and it also describes their reason for moving to Maui.
For the past eight years, Chris and Carolyn Border, along with their two young sons, have lived on a rugged, beautiful volcanic island that lies several thousand miles to the northeast of Maui.
The Aleutian Islands, lying on the boundary between the Bering Sea and the North Pacific, are a rugged chain of sparsely populated islands. Unalaska Island, with its port of Dutch Harbor, holds a close-knit community of some 4,000 year-round residents who primarily serve the fishing fleets that call the port home.
Unalaska is known as the “Birthplace of the Winds,” and sometimes just stepping out the front door was an adventure in winds that frequently blow 50 or more miles per hour for several days.
It was the remote ruggedness and the opportunity to experience life in a unique setting that attracted Chris to teach high school mathematics and science in this treeless, windswept community.
This past July, the Border Family traded their Alaska island home for a new home here on Maui. Chris Border will be a new faculty member in the upper school of Maui Preparatory Academy this fall.
The move was prompted by a desire to broaden the experiences of their sons, Jacob and Andrew, now seven and four, as well as the opportunity to be a part of Maui Preparatory Academy as it sees its first class of students graduate.
Chris enjoys the creative process involved in teaching and advocates a strong hands-on component to learning in all classes — something developed during his graduate level physics work, and supported in an Advanced Placement Physics conference this summer.
Despite a month-long visit to family in Minnesota, the Borders arrived on Maui before most of their household goods. They have quickly settled in to life on Maui and are very grateful for an ocean that is warm enough to swim and play in.
Everything from bugs to trees to the evening stars have made this new move a big adventure for the Border Family, who look forward to being active members of the community as they explore their new island home.