6 months in paradise

I combined the Divemaster and Research Diver program with the Research Fellowship for my master's thesis with Indo Ocean Project. For this, I got to spend 6 months in Bira, South Sulawesi. During the first 2 months, I've been trained to be a Divemaster, improving my underwater skills, from buoyancy to skills, to assist and lead dives. In parallel, I've learn so much thanks to the ecology workshops, in particular, I've learn how to do BRUVs (Baited Remote Underwater Video), the focus of my thesis, from planning, deployment, retrieval and analysis. During the last 4 months, I focused on collecting data for my thesis on the population of Whitetip Reef Sharks of Kambing Island, through BRUVs and Unite Bira, the citizen science program of IOP.

I really want to thank the IOP team; they've been amazing with me. The sweet Yuly, who helped me analyse the first BRUVs and let me help her with the Benthic Survey's footage analysis. Sudar has been a wonderful scientific supervisor, always ready to answer my questions and help me develop a laser structure to measure sharks. Greg made it all possible, organizing the dives and schedule and giving me valuable advice and guidance. Kert is one of the best instructors that I've had, always by my side and ready to help me when I was leading the dives.

This program is so much more than a normal internship: you learn a lot, but you also meet amazing people on the way, who share your passions and enthusiasm. No space for complaints or laziness, on our days off we would always find an adventure or a side quest: from cliff jumping, to visiting underground caves, to building a volleyball field using a ghost net, and to visiting the Phinisi boats building sites. You never get bored, and you're never alone. I'm so grateful to have experienced this, and I really, really recommend it.