Do I recommend it? Depends to whom. You might really like it or be rather disappointed

Tl;dr: My experience was overall balanced, 6/10. It’s a great programme on paper and many dive sites will let you experience great encounters with wildlife. The base management has also recently improved and everything is pretty well organised. However, the Seychelles base at Cape Ternay has a multitude of problems including high staff turnover, unreliable equipment (boat and compressor, diving gear is ok) and inability to manage effects of Covid-19. Also be aware that most participants are aged 18-23 and looking for a fun experience more than to create impact. If you’re looking for many serious and knowledgeable conversations about sustainability and conversation, this is not the place for you.

Long version:
I am a 34yo male from Switzerland. I was due to spend 2 months at the GVI base in Belize. However, 1 month before the start of the programme, I was advised that I had to choose another location because the Belize base hat problems getting the necessary documents to open. I chose the Cap Ternay Base on the Seychelles.

Unfortunately, I arrived shortly after a spike in Covid-19 cases on the Seychelles, which basically kept us in perpetual lockdown due to the Seychelles requirement of putting the entire group into isolation for 5 days if even just one person tests positive. Sadly, GVI proved unable to operate the base “safely” under these conditions, despite advertising that they could. This was less due to a lack of hygiene, but just the high infectiousness of Omicron which made new cases almost impossible to avoid. As a result, between Christmas 2021 and 07.02.2022 the base at Cap Ternay was in lockdown 4 times, for a total of about 22 days. This meant we were not allowed to leave base or dive (snorkelling was ok though). Under these conditions, the most reasonable course of action would have been to close the base until the Seychelles caseload or quarantine restrictions had improved. GVI however did no such thing, probably since that would have meant losing revenue.

Unfortunately, this is not where problems ended. When I arrived on base, the boat used to bring the volunteers to the dive sites was still in its annual service. After it finally was done, there were unidentifiable engine problems that staff could not solve by themselves. Additionally, the compressor used to fill the dive tanks is an old beast, which is both super prone to breakdowns. (Being petrol-fuelled, it also emits high amounts of CO2, quite shocking for an organisation dedicated to environmental conservation which has been on site for 16 years.) As a result, there were many days even outside of lockdown when we could not dive either. At least the program manager could rent boats and tanks from local dives shops sometimes so we got at least some dives in. But even these were sometimes cancelled at a moment’s notice.

A word on participants: the typical volunteer is in their early 20s and from the UK. A considerable number of people also arrives from the US or continental Europe. Based on a call with a sales agent I had hoped for more participants that were similar to my age (34), life situation (career change) and strong interest in sustainability, but that was not really the case. People were mostly looking for a fun time. Not necessarily a bad thing, but for me it killed a big reason for doing the programme in the first place. Just something to keep in mind. If you consider all these points, you will also know if chosing the (career) internship, as opposed to the volunteering, is for you. Are you a student or recent graduate? You might get some really valuable insights, especially if you are in the field of conservation. If you're already an experienced professional, you will get little value.

Finally, most people join a GVI programme to do actual volunteering work. But do not be fooled: since GVI does not provide any species identification training beforehand, you have to learn everything on base. This includes very interesting but time-consuming workshop and self-study sessions as well as “point-outs” where you go diving or snorkelling and a member of staff points outs species for you to identify. This makes sense, since animals may look very different in the wild compared to a power point slide. It’s also fun! But until you get to actually surveying fish or even corals, you have will have spent at least 4-6 weeks, even under optimal non-covid conditions. Studying invertebrates takes less time (about 2-3 weeks under optimal conditions) until you can start surveying. This means if you want to do actual volunteer work, you should plan for at least two months, otherwise you just spend your time training and on fun dives.

All that being said, when things DID work, it was an amazing experience. I loved the diving around Cap Ternay and surveying is super fun! Especially when you see what happens with the data you collect over the long term. Unfortunately, these brilliant moments are balanced by the many frustrating ones. To be fair: things improved greatly in my second month and base management knows about the issues and promises to improve them. However, I can only rate what I experienced.

Here’s my extended pro & con list

+ Knowledgeable, fun and friendly staff which is also fairly experienced when it comes to marine conservation
+ great location in between two marine parks which are great for both snorkelling and diving and have beautiful beaches as well
+ day-to-day live is generally well organised
+ Feedback is taken seriously
+ surveying is SO much fun!

- GVI staff and organisation unable to keep base running during covid, bad & short-sighted decision-making considering the circumstances. This was a really big downside during my stay, especially considering GVI’s absurdly strict no-refunds policy.
- Diving happens less frequently and is less impactful than they promise, for a multitude of reasons. After 9 weeks I had a total of 47 dives (out of a maximum of 90), of which 18 were surveys, 5 were cleaning dives (“DAD”) and 9 for survey training. Meaning a third of all dives had nothing to do with marine conservation, which I consider a bit too much.
- Base in need of significant investment: need for new, electric compressor, several parts of the base are in disrepair and lots of trash lying around on premises.
- Not very ecological operations. Air compressor is a fuel guzzler, cleaning products are not bio-degradable (bleach to clean floors is swiped directly into nature), the recycling station is the biggest mess I have ever seen, though improvements on all
- More education on sustainability and conservation could and should be done during the programme.