My Scuba Dive Volunteer Experience for Coral Reef Restoration Program in West Bali

On day one, I was picked up by Bali Internships team from my hostel and transported to Pemuteran village. I was welcomed warmly by the two volunteers who were already supported there, Laia and Aura. On the same day I was introduced to the rest of the team on the site, Pak Komang, Pak Made, Pak Kadek and Pak Putu.

I was slowly showed around and introduced into the work I ‘d do for the next 3 weeks. As a scuba dive volunteer, my tasks were: cleaning the office and surrounding area every morning and every afternoon, cleaning structures underwater. I was assigned to have an eye on harmful species, maintaining electricity out of and in the water, preparations for coral planting and monitoring, attaching sponsors’ names to the structures, finally promoting the NGO’s agenda and mission by educating the people who came and visit the beach near our center about the coral program.

My first week was special for various reasons: an ambassador of one of a marine conservation organization in Bali, Brandon, visited our center for an upcoming diving event where we discussed which improvements need to happen in the NGO, mainly bettering outward appearance in order to shift public attention back to the project that is essential for tourism in this area, but also improving daily organization, letting us dive more often and giving us more work to do in general. We also held a presentation in front of High School students and later took them on a snorkeling trip around the artificial reefs.

My daily routine starts at 08:00 am in the morning, cleaning up the station and the beach, then usually waiting for the site manager to arrive and give us, the volunteers, further tasks. At roughly 12:00 pm we would have a lunch-break of about an hour, often followed by another smaller task after returning. The workday ends with cleaning up the station again at 04:00 pm still leaving a lot of free time to plan for myself every evening, weekends free to travel, although there was a weekly meeting on Sundays.

The second week, after Laia left, Aura and I went diving far more often, the feedback had been picked up. We mainly spent the week repairing technology around the solar panels. The third week I sadly was unable to enter the water until the very last day, where I did my last dive but I still did a lot of work on land, especially when the decision was made to repaint and renew the building. There was work to do from morning to late afternoon.

We, the volunteers spend basically the entire day together, be it doing our work, going out to eat, cooking on our own, going to parties in the evening, snorkeling and freediving around the reefs, hanging with Brandon or the staff or travelling in the weekends, throughout the volunteership, we encountered so many people with similar views on marine conservation and the ocean in general, it was very easy to grow extremely close to everyone involved, especially in the last week being the only volunteer left, I connected with the all of the staff very well.

The acquaintances I made in my time there absolutely made leaving the hardest and are the reason I will definitely come back.

To give a feedback, I can say that almost all of our constructive ideas have been carried out, sometimes after some time, though. The NGO’s center now looks amazingly interesting, eye-catching and inviting which really warms my heart considering the potential it has, being one of the biggest attractions in all of West Bali! The issue that is still left to be improved in my opinion is giving the volunteers that come to Pemuteran enough work to do, me and the others often had to ask for jobs to be done.

It is easy to end up just hanging around the station and waiting for tourists to come by or just think of own things to do when not told to complete a task. But considering that we were the first generation of volunteers here, I am highly optimistic the program will perfect quickly. All I can say is that volunteering at this program with Bali Internships was one of the best experiences of my life, I learned that I truly enjoy working in marine conservation and that we easily can have a huge positive impact on the world we live in. I made some of the best friends ever and it made me feel like I made a second home in Bali.