Volun­teering Seychelles North Island – Peggy

Volunteering in the Seychelles – Feedback: Eight questions for Peggy

1) Could you give us a short overview of your tasks in the project?

• Patrol walks, searching for turtle activities (e.g. recording new tracks or nests)
• relocating turtle nests
• collecting garbage at the beach
• measuring the beach
• planting small seedlings, removing non-domestic plants
• snorkeling, taking photos of fish during this activity, evaluating and recording data in the end
• recording land turtles with an app

2) What were your biggest challenges during the project?

Everything worked quite fine for me, there haven’t been any negative challenges.

3) Was there anything that you liked most? Or anything that left you with a negative impression?

To me, the overall island feeling was beyond words and with it the “isolation from the outside”, animals and nature were unique. Snorkeling was a pure pleasure. There are so many different colourful fishes, I just felt like I was in a giant aquarium… One night we had a negative experience, though: a few centipedes made it into our accommodation – not really nice.

4) Did you have certain expectations before you started the project?

I expected to observe baby turtles hatching and help them getting into the water. During my time in the Seychelles there was only one nest hatching and we missed it. But that is how nature works… Apart from that I came to the island without any expectations; the information given by NATUCATE really do fit reality.

5) Did you do anything during your free time that you can recommend to other participants?

If you can, you should walk all hiking trails, have a dinner at Honeymoon Beach and spend much time at the beach and in the water.

6) Which tips would you give to other participants who would like to do this project?

As I pointed out earlier, I received quite comprehensive information from NATUCATE before my departure to the Seychelles. More tips for travelling luggage would be to take an air mattress – I really enjoyed it! Take less clothing with you, because you have to wear a uniform most of the time (there is a washing machine on the island to wash private clothing, the uniforms are washed every day), carry mosquito spray and definitely one or more memory cards with many gigabytes ;)

7) Can you guess how many additional expenses you had?

I had absolutely no extra expenses on the island. I took some German snacks with me and I did not need anything from the employee shop.

8) Here is some space for further questions or stories:

My friend and I added some extra vacations on Mahé after the project. We were lucky enough to get to know the Seychelles even closer. We rented a car and slept in an excellent accommodation in Port Glaud (Villas de Jardin). We highly recommend visiting La Digue. You also have the opportunity to collect all spare days on North Island to visit Mahé Island for the weekend – but this opportunity was “too stressful” to me. I think every day on North Island is a present! I recommend everyone to enjoy the Seychelles after the project for a bit…