Curieuse Island Conservation Project

Although the base camp is very basic you do quickly adjust to that, helped by great staff and a brilliant group of international co-volunteers who gelled into an amazing team. The routine and simple life, free from technology (unless you want to invest in a local SIM) leads to great conversations, learning new card games - from Russia to Australia, joining an impromptu yoga class, discovering the delights of Exploding Kittens, or reading on a beautiful beach close to camp in your down time. I was there outside of the main turtle and shark monitoring periods but this gave me the opportunity to participate in a wide range of projects including beach profiling, Giant Tortoise measuring (hatchlings and ancients), Coco de Mer studies as well as monitoring the beaches for Green Turtle nesting and continuing the Juvenile Lemon Shark monitoring. It is worth finding out what you will be involved in and an idea of the size of your group, but whatever it is you will be trekking over beautiful, if rugged, terrain most days and getting to enjoy the simplicity of island life. Added to this we snorkelled every week and got to see so many wonderful marine species. GVI seem to be very age inclusive, which was important to me as a mature person. There are opportunities to explore other islands at weekends and Bird is highly recommended.