Travel del Sol: Business trip to Paradise Island

In Cairns, Australia now, but continuing with the backlog of post, as I have internet at the moment. Off to Great Barrier Reef tomorrow….

My first ever visit to a volunteer conservation project was to the island Koh Rong Samleom. In the Lonely Planet described as “ a paradise with mosquitoes”.

At Koh Rong Samleom the volunteers take a diving certificate within their first week, and then they are ready to take part in the marine research project. The project focuses on documenting reef-bleaching, population counts of sea horses and identifying fish and other sea creatures. Since the start of the project three years ago, the volunteers and project staff have identified 94 new fish species and added them to the official Cambodian register of sea species. The project has also successfully pushed the government and local authorities to protect the reef from fishing with nets and other harmful fishing methods. Hardly any of the volunteers have a science background, but they are still able to contribute amazingly on the project, with a little bit of training along the way. I am very impressed!

Only staying for 1,5 days, we did not have a chance to learn to dive or to do any research ourselves, but we put some snorkels and masks on and swam out to the reef. No wetsuits needed as the water held 29 c degrees. We had been warned of the scary sea urchins, and of course the first thing we encountered was a huge spiky sea urchin! Getting over the initial scare, we enjoyed the tropical fish and a beautiful blue clam embedded in the coral.

On land we hung out with the volunteers, had a beer and coke in the small village (population of 200), kept huge geckos for pets in our bungalows, saw a newly slaughtered dog!, had bucket showers, slept under mosquito nets, but had plenty of mosquito bites!

Wish we could have stayed for longer, but I am not complaining, as a business trip does not get much better than this.