Bahamas Marine Conservation with Gapforce

I loved my time in the Bahamas, it was a lot of fun but also really educating.. you learn about the environment, the ocean but also a lot about life in general, and yourself too! You’ll find friends for life and you will experience a time you’ll never forget.. great diving, great staff, feels like family. Camp is pretty basic but when you’re there you realise that you don’t need more in life then what you’ll have there. Besides the diving there are many cool day trips for weekends but also a day off per week so you can explore on your own or just hang out and chill with new friends..

I volunteered with Gapforce for 4 weeks over the summer of 2017. I had the most amazing experience and it had major impact on my life. It was definitely a minimalist lifestyle but nothing compares to waking up on the beach every day. The food was also pretty basic but I learned how to be creative in the kitchen and ended up making a lot of great memories cooking with friends. As for the diving, I learned so much from diving almost every day and the reefs were stunning. It's really cool to learn how to take surveys and contribute to necessary research on the reef health. The staff and other volunteers were all such amazing people and we all bonded over a shared passion for the environment and reefs. I learned so much from our marine scientist and gained new perspectives on environmentalism that impacted my career aspirations. I would not recommend this program if you are looking for a beach resort type of holiday. The conditions are very basic and that’s honestly part of what made the experience so great. I realized how few materials I really need in my life while also learning about the amazing reef ecosystem and how to protect it.

I took a trip to the Bahamas in January 2017 for 10 weeks for the marine conservation program, and I loved it. I met some incredible people, including the staff members, who I'm sure I'll be friends with for years. I had never been diving before so it was a bit of a risky move to jump in for 10 weeks, but I absolutely loved learning to dive, the instructors were great and were really helpful. We had two interns from the previous phase who knew everything about the program and the ins and outs of the camp. The camp was even more basic than I thought it was going to be, but I wouldn't have changed that because it made the experience better - everyone is in the same situation no matter where you're from, just be wary of frogs sitting in the toilet bowls! The camp itself is beautiful, right on the beach which stretches for miles with no other people, and the dive sites you are taken to are amazing - if you are expecting to see sharks, rays and turtles, you will not be disappointed! The showers are outside and are pretty cold, but nice on a hot day. You have to do your own laundry but that's easy! Cooking meals is great fun in teams, although trying to make a meal at the end of the week when you have all the boring ingredients left is hard. One of the few downsides is the food, because it's very basic, mostly noodles, rice and vegetables, but there are two local shops where you can get a few luxuries. The only other thing I would add is that your experience can be made better or worse by the people you experience it with; if you have bad instructors or fellow volunteers that you don't work well with then it can be really hard.

My time on Andros with GapForce was surely the best time of my life. Not only did I learn a lot about the local fish and coral species, the oceanic environment in general, taught by the very passionate marine biologist Elyssa, I also had the best dive instructor zara, who made me always feel safe and showed me the underwater world. Both of them were precious to the camp and people I would not want to miss. Apart from the learning I had the incredible opportunity to live in one of the most amazing places I've ever been, seconds away from the beach. I saw loads of sharks, turtles, interesting fish and dolphins. And I experienced everything with amazing people I met through this program and who became my friends for a life time.
Also the program around our scientific training was great fun and especially the legendary quiz-nights. The time here was definitely life changing, thanks to the amazing staff people and also all the volunteers.

The six weeks proved to be both challenging yet stimulating in the content it offered.

As someone who has never dived before, or undertaken such a huge project so far away from home, the initial arrival into camp proved fairly daunting and nerve wracking.

However friendly and helpful staff and a well ran series of dive and conservation practical and theoretical lessons quickly brushed aside any worry that remained and formed the basis of what would be an incredibly insightful and engaging six weeks.

As of leaving, i am now a qualified PADI Advanced Open Water diver and further the skills i have learned to progress into more advanced fields of diving such as wreck and cave. The work of the camp Marine Biologist and her clear enthusiasm for the field has also helped enforce a real interest in marine biology and conservation and huge desire to take a more proactive approach to looking after the incredibly fragile, beautiful and diverse world that lives beneath the waves.

Perhaps the hardest part of leaving camp is the realisation that I now have to leave behind all the incredible volunteers, both new and old, of whom i have worked, lived and dived with over the last six weeks. The friendships formed over the duration of the project have been a pleasure to be part of and i remain confident that they will continue onward into the forseeable future.

Thank you so much to all the hardworking staff and volunteers on camp for making these six weeks so special!

My trip to Andros was amazing. I will never forget it and I will take a lot of calmness and patience with me home. Alone living on a camp directly at a lonely beach and being able to jump into the water whenever it gets too hot, is wonderful! For me this adventure was completely positive as I enjoyed every dive we did – with Elyssa and Zara I always felt safe- , all the lectures we had –Elyssa is a very competent marine biologist-, spending time with the people here, getting to see a bit of the Bahamian life and the island and simply exploring parts, as tiny as they might be, of the stunning underwater world. I had so much fun learning about all the fish, corals etc. that I even would have loved having more lectures, but I noticed that Elyssa was so busy that it wasn’t possible. Its a whole new way of diving when you actually know all the fish you are surrounded with under water. Sadly we had a lot of problems with our boat and the compressor so we couldnt do as many dives as I expected us to do. Nevertheless it was never boring at the camp as we found other things to do instead. The trips to the blue holes of Andros were fun. One day we learnde more about plants at the Forfar station and we even got to try Termites! The best trip was to the bat caves, what was scary and so much fun at the same time! Afterwards we went snorkeling at wrecks what I really enjoyed too. If you dont expect a high living standard and super delicious food you will have a great time with all the people you meet at the camp. Thanks to cool activities like the Quiz Night or Beach Olympics there will be forming a great community. The longer you stay here the more cool stuff you will do because the number of people decreases. If you are motivated and eager to find out more about marine life and how to help saving it, this project is made for you!

I came on this trip because wanted to spend the summer diving in a beautiful country and get involved with a marine biology programme that I wouldn’t get anywhere else. I have absolutely loved living in Andros over the past 6 weeks as it has given me the opportunity to not only make great friends from all over the world, but to live on a beautiful white beach and learn and conserve the local eco systems. The lectures Elyssa provided us with were really great as they were really thorough and exciting and she was always available for extra help with the understanding of the fish to those of us who do not study marine biology as a degree. I could really tell she put so much effort into them and it made learning the fish a lot more enjoyable than it could have been. I’d also say that Zara made the running of the camp really fun and up beat as it seems the expedition leader wasn’t available a lot of the time, which almsot all the volunteers found incredbily fustrating and odd. She also took almost every dive during the week days over the time I spent in Andros and was always in a good mood and ready to help even by the time of the last dive of the day. Although I may have written an email expressing my frustration with the facilities here, which still stands true, it has in no way tarnished my experience and time here and I am very sad to be leaving Greenforce and everyone left here. Particular highlights for me visiting the blue holes on Saturday's and all of the incredible diving i managed to do, as well as making really great friends.

There was one dive where we did a fish point out and it was just amazing. First there were 3 sharks around us and after this we saw a moray swimming which was absolutely amazing. Staying here is amazing because of the nice sea and the diving sites. Even snorkeling is much fun when you can see all the corals and fishes right under you and you can make amazing photos. I liked the trips to the blue holes because it is nice to see these water filled big holes in the middle of the jungle.