GVI, Ethical Impact: Volunteer in Seychelles

I volunteered for a month in April 2023 in Mahé on the marine conservation programme and for me the staff and volunteers on base really made the month extremely special. I got my diving qualifications and experienced some absolutely amazing marine life. The staff on base are so lovely but the equipment they have isn’t sustainable for amount of daily dives we did. The compressor breaks on a regular basis and there isn’t enough staff/ field assistants to run smoothly - especially if any of them become ill however whilst I was on base the staff did do everything they could to find replacement tanks.

I spent 2 weeks on Curieuse, Seychelles with GVI in August 2022, and it was the experience of a lifetime! I was looking for something worthwhile to do during my long summer holiday as a teacher, and my GVI program was perfect. It was very well organised (e.g. organising travel from the airport to the boat pick-up), the staff on-base were fantastic and I learned so much in only 2 weeks. As a science teacher I am passionate about citizen science and being able to be part of a project like this with such a long-lasting impact was amazing. I met some amazing people that I have kept in touch with, and had experiences that I would never have had otherwise. Thank you GVI for creating life-long memories and allowing me to be a part of this amazing project.

I chose to do a GVI program because I had just finished a MSc in Marine Conservation and wanted to get more in field experience. I did the Curieuse, Seychelles Program for 10 weeks (Oct-Dec) and it was amazing! It took me about a week to adjust to living in such different conditions than I was used to but by the end I didn't want to go back to living in my house again and wished I could stay for longer. The accommodation was the old leper colony female dormitories and the only people on the island were us and the rangers who stayed on the other side of the island. And of course there were tourists that came for day trips. The staff there were amazing and really helped you feel welcome on the island along with the two dogs that lived on base. I feel that I have definitely learned and experienced so many things that will help me in my future career. Some of these were working in hot and tiring conditions as a part of a team, being around people 24/7, and adapting to limited equipment in sometimes stressful moments. But this trip was so amazing that I would love to go back again to see the sharks, turtles and tortoises that we surveyed everyday, and exploring the other islands in the Seychelles again. I have also made some lifelong friends from this trip and am waiting to save up and go on another GVI program around the world

My time in the Seychelles was the best of my life so far. It was my first time travelling alone and so far away from my home. At first I was worried about getting there and what activities I would be doing and conditions I would be living in. I met my group in the airport and we were immediately picked up by the driver and taken to where we needed to be which was very helpful. My first look on base was exactly what I expected it to be, very basic. I was however surprised by how nice the bathrooms were and found the lack of hot water did not bother me. The staff were very friendly and I felt very welcome. What I did find to be a struggle in the coming weeks was the food situation. We mostly ate rice, pasta and vegetables and by the end I was sick of the plain-ish food (especially red peppers). We were treated to some chips and burgers occasionally - those were my favourite nights and on 2 evenings we ordered pizza in from the nearest town which was very enjoyable. I wish I had brought more snacks with me since I was always hungry after the dives.

My time scuba diving was extremely enjoyable and productive. We dove 2 times a day for five days a week. For the first week we completed our advanced open water course. After that we moved on to the marine research part, doing point-outs for our specific area of learning to practice our observation skills. I personally did fish 1 which was reef fish. We were taught by a series of PowerPoints and scouring through books to identify which types of fish we had seen during our previous dive- this was very efficient and a fun way to learn. By the end of the course I had learnt around 50 fish plus other incidentals and was able to identify them during our surveys in the last week. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the marine animals and me and my friends came up with fun ways to revise and test each other. Some of my favourite sightings were nudibranchs, turtles, eels and rays. I also did other surveys such as seagrass surveys, coral surveys and nudibranch surveys. The coral one was interesting as we had a numbered colour palette and picking out random bits of coral, compared its colour to the palette for the closest match.

During the weekdays we had free time in the evenings and the volunteers often organised fun activities such as movie nights, table tennis tournaments, football on the beach and coconut hunts (which was my favourite although I did get a lot of mosquito bites wandering around the jungle). We also did a few cards games which got very competitive.
On weekends we left base to explore the island and others surrounding it. Most weekends we stayed in mahe and a group of us just booked hotel rooms. In our free time we liked to relax at the beach, wander around the local area, eat out in restaurants etc. My favourite activity was the three bothers hike trail. It took us over an hour to get to the very top and it was not an easy journey either, the majority of it was spent on hands and knees scaling up boulders and over huge tree roots but it was worth it as the view was incredible at the top. We could see so much of the island and could watch as aeroplanes landed in the airport: it blew my mind being so high that even the aeroplanes were lower than us. If I remember rightly we were 2220ft from sea level, it was just such an amazing experience. On another weekend we went via boat to another island where we cycled the whole island, visited various beaches and enjoyed a couple nights in the reggae bar. On another occasion a couple of us even organised a night dive which was so much fun, we saw the likes of lobsters and huge white sea snakes. If I turned off my torch and waved my hand around I could see the glow of the bioluminescence which was surreal. I would have liked to do more night dives and hope to do so I’m the future.

Overall my time in the Seychelles was just incredible and I have made life long friends all across the globe. I feel much more confident in travelling now and my ability to overcome any worries. It has inspired me to carry on and study marine biology in the future and I would definitely like to do another course similar to this with GVI again. A wonderful experience.

I am really enjoying my time in the Seychelles, Curieuse Island with GVI. I’ve had the opportunity to do lots of exciting things. I have seen turtles nesting, baby turtles making there way to the sea for the first time, stroked a lot of giant tortoises and held a baby lemon shark, all while collecting data in a beautiful location. The base is right on the beach, so every morning the first thing you see is the ocean and the last thing you hear at night are the waves on the beach. We also share base Obama, the giant tortoises, who really loves bananas.

From the moment I arrived the group and staff was very welcoming and helped with all our questions! The work is great and you get to do a lot of different things. The walks to the beaches are amazing especially the view points. So far the best thing on curieus island is the sharking this is where you catch lemon sharks! The bbq nights are amazing and you definitely learn how to cool here! You also get a lot of opportunities to do extra stuff at the weekends like going to praslin for the day. !!!

The staff at the GVI base on Curieuse were so welcoming right from the start that we all immediately felt at home. The communal living style we quickly adopted on base meant we all made such good friends in days which completely transformed the whole experience. The days were full of hiking, completing tortoise surveys, beach profiles and mangrove monitoring, then the late afternoons and evening were spent relaxing on the beach, cooking, playing volleyball, or learning how to open coconuts. My favourite memory is of the first morning, were we hiked through the mangroves, still completely in awe of the amazing scenery around us, only to stumble across at least 20 giant tortoises going about their daily life- incredible! I had also never had the chance to go snorkelling before, so the opportunity to do so in the Indian Ocean with such a huge diversity of coral and fish was amazing. Another highlight is spending days monitoring the beaches for turtle activity, then having the afternoon to relax on the beach, go swimming, play capture the flag and end with a BBQ in the evening. I could not recommend this experience highly enough and it is something I will never forget. Bring on the next GVI adventure!

Seychelles was incredible, the scenes were that out of a movie and the people made the memories, I genuinely couldn't change a thing because I don't know what could beat it.
The number of times I thought to myself, "how is this real" would be surprising, but that's exactly how it felt, I was swimming in coral reeds on the other side of the world, identifying fish and helping make a difference, and that feeling will be difficult to match. Seychelles made one of the best months of my life and I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to go.