Category: Volunteer Expeditions

Our award-winning expeditions offer international volunteers the opportunity to contribute to our marine research and conservation work at our remote dive camps in Madagascar and Belize.

Bigger, better, faster: ‘The Columbian’ has finally arrived!

by Sarah Beach, Field Scientist, Belize This expedition marked another exciting milestone in the history of Blue Ventures Belize (BVB). After almost a year in the making, we finally welcomed the arrival of our brand new boat. Built in Mexico...

/ Aug 21, 2012

A day in the life…

by Kirsty Rankin, BV volunteer, Madagascar Waking up to the relentless crash of breaking waves on halfmoon beach, I groan, turn over, but just before I close my eyes to the temptation of continued slumber I catch the dim glow...

/ Aug 17, 2012

The (not so) rum diaries: life in Belize

by Anders Hartmann, BV volunteer, Belize After 1 week at Bacalar Chico Dive Camp (BCDC) we have now learned the routines and the focus has moved towards surveys and passing the fish and benthic tests, both on computer and in...

/ Jul 25, 2012

The end isn’t near, it’s here!

by Chris Miller, BV volunteer, Belize We are now in our last week at Bacalar Chico and we are all so sad that our time here is nearly over. Over the past few weeks we have had an amazing time...

/ Jul 10, 2012

Lionfish and camp refurbishments in Belize

By Richard Nimmo, Blue Ventures Expeditions Managing Director. In May I visited Belize to catch-up with the amazing progress that the Blue Ventures team and volunteers have made in recent months. My visit began in the village of Sarteneja in...

/ Jun 19, 2012

Paradise lost: my final few days in Belize

by Colin Engel, Blue Ventures volunteer, Belize Monday 7 May This is the day we pack up camp and leave. The first boat took the early birds back at dawn to Sarteneja, leaving half of us some further hours to...

/ May 25, 2012

Bobbing along on the bottom of the beautiful briny sea….

by Caroline De Willebois, Blue Ventures volunteer, Madagascar Descending into the cool turquoise water below, I am overcome with that well-known sense of utter peace that accompanies the stillness and weightlessness of being underwater. After a few days of not...

/ May 14, 2012

Setting up and diving down

by Chris Miller, Blue Ventures volunteer, Belize We are two weeks into our expedition here in Belize and so far have already experienced one of the best celebrations in Sarteneja – the Easter Regatta. To celebrate the regatta we had...

/ Apr 18, 2012

Great expectations: some thoughts from some of our volunteers

by Cara MacDonald, Blue Ventures volunteer, Madagascar The two weeks I have been volunteering in Andavadoaka have flown by and we have managed to do so much already! In our first couple of days we traveled via pirogue to Lamboara....

/ Mar 27, 2012

Having fun at the Club Aloalo Environmental Festival

by Jeremy Pivor, Blue Ventures volunteer, Madagascar Last Saturday (4th Feb) I had the fortunate opportunity to go to a festival put on by kids from Club Aloalo. For those that don’t know, Club Aloalo is an environmental youth club...

/ Feb 14, 2012

Record numbers of critically endangered tortoise counted by Blue Ventures

by Shanta Barley, Field Scientist, Madagascar When Ryan Walker, a biologist based at the Open University, and his team crawled on their hands and knees through 60 kilometres of clothes-shredding, hair-plucking spiny forest between Toliara and the Mangoky River, racking...

/ Feb 1, 2012

One coffee and a warty chameleon, coming right up!

by Shanta Barley, Field Scientist, Madagascar With 57 of the world’s 131 species of chameleon, including the largest and the smallest, Madagascar has a monopoly on the family’s diversity. This unusual individual (see photo, below) was spotted clinging to a...

/ Jan 30, 2012

Starting out in Sarteneja

By Casey Lewis, Blue Ventures volunteer, Belize I arrived in Sarteneja, Belize a little after 5pm – just in time to watch the sunset creep over the small town. Sarteneja is right by the ocean with beautiful views of the...

/ Jan 10, 2012

Lemurs, Larium and Leanne Rimes: the adventures of the overland tour

By Martine Botha, Blue Ventures volunteer, Madagascar Day One After our first humid night in Antananarivo, we arrived for breakfast at the Hotel Raphia to meet the rest of our fellow BV volunteers and to feast on a standard Madagascan...

/ Nov 18, 2011

Life as an independent researcher

By Sam Wragg, Independent researcher, Madagascar Safe in the knowledge that I have plenty of time to write up my third year project when I get back to the UK and with my data collection occurring on a week-on, week-off basis, I’ve...

/ Aug 30, 2011