Hi my name is Robert but everyone on camp calls me Rob, I’m from Bristol and I am on GVI Seychelles internship program for 3 months, this forms part of my dive master course. I am here doing my leadership course, learning to identify commercial fish and survey them.
I’ve always wanted to work with animals of any sort since I was young, now that I’m old enough and had enough money I am finally doing what I’ve always wanted. Even though I knew I wanted to work with animals I never truly knew exactly what type until I started scuba diving about 5 years ago, since then I have had a constant love for the water and marine life. I am starting to feel like I made the right choice, I definitely want to work in the diving industry. The atmosphere on base is great, everyone gets along even though we are all from such different backgrounds. I have felt very welcomed by the staff here too, they make the work feel more like fun rather than actual work.
It’s not all fun and games though as we are hard at work learning all the different types of fish, although this just makes going diving even more fun because now I actually know what I’m looking at rather than just seeing cool looking at fish. The more I learn the more I realize that how the marine conservation work is really important due to the amount of coral lost over the past few months/years. It is sad when we go diving and see all the dead\dying coral but there is still hope that it can recover as long as companies like GVI keep working as hard as they do to help.
The Seychelles has so much natural beauty that it’s hard to choose a favourite part, but so far for me personally my highlight has been to see a Sea Turtle in the wild for the first time as they’re my favourite animal. Overall these first two weeks have definitely been an eye opener of what’s to come and I just can’t wait for the next six months.