Ocean Spirits Leatherback Sea Turtle Research & Education Programme, Grenada
Ex-Volunteer Feedback Extracts
Review from Swiss volunteer, Olivia Meier - March 2008
My experience with Ocean Spirits in Grenada
A gust of wind blew the salty spray right into my face, yet I didn’t even realize. With my eyes wide open, I was starring into the subtle darkness to where the scent of wet sand comes from. Inch after inch, a huge leatherback turtle was crawling up the beach, breathing heavily. We gathered several feet away to let her dig her egg-chamber in peace. Once she was done, we rushed to her, trying not to disturb her too much. Guided by the moonlight we got to work.
Of course I was tired after a night on the beach. However, thanks to the overwhelmingly beautiful view from our house, I didn’t feel the urge of going to sleep at all. With a glass of water and a green orange in my hand I went down into the dancing heat. Not really intending to get burned I went back into the shade after a short while. Soothed by the natural soundings of our environment, I dozed off, dreaming of turtles and the funny trip to Grenville.
Not long after, a gentle hand was placed on my shoulder and a friendly face was chuckling at me… dinnertime! In my back, I could see the purple sunset while I was sitting around the dinner table with my so beloved new friends. Not even the mosquitos could lessen the idyllic charm of this very moment.
Hopefully, I will be back!
Feedback from Anna Maton, a teacher from the UK who joined our teams from July to August as a Research Assistant volunteer
My time spent with the Ocean Spirits was definitely one I will not forget. It was an amazing experience not only to be working with such an interesting conservation project, but also to share these experiences with strangers who quickly became friends and on one of the most beautiful and unspoilt Caribbean islands.
The Ocean Spirits team was quick to welcome us to Grenada and make us all feel at home. The atmosphere was relaxed and friendly as well as being a serious working environment. For example as well as learning a lot about the Leatherback Sea Turtle, waking at 5am every morning and working hard on the nearby beaches, we learnt how to pick and prepare fresh coconuts, cheat at Monopoly and survive on a tropical island!
The weather was inevitably very hot! However, being the rainy season, the almost daily showers were very welcome especially when we’d gone without running water for 24 hours. We all managed to wash our hair in the rain too – the most refreshing shower I have ever had!
We also managed to see a lot of Grenada, experience the Reggae Buses, Carnival, the neighbouring towns of Sauteurs and Grenville, the rain forest and Seven Sisters waterfalls and of course the Chocolate factory.
Once in Grenada, the cost of sight-seeing is very cheap compared to UK prices. I would recommend volunteers stock up on high quality mosquito repellant as we all got eaten alive! It didn’t spoil the most amazing life experience to date though! Thoroughly recommend this project to anyone with high sense of adventure and fun. As long as you are a team-player and not afraid to get your hands dirty…
Denice Ogilvie, a business manager from the UK, aged 45 yrs old writes about volunteering with Ocean Spirits March-April 2006
Our first night of working on the beach with the turtles was both the most amazing experience as well as probably the most physically demanding thing I have ever had to do. To see your first turtle to touch them and to play such an important role in their future existence by way of ensuring their nests were in the best possible place and to relocate any that were not and then to rake the beach to hide their location, made the hard work and the feeling of total exhaustion at the end of the shift worthwhile.
Our free time was very precious to us, you looked forward to a night off, a chance to relax and get out and about, I think we all fell in love with both the island and its people, they were friendly and the locals appreciated the effort had been made by Ocean Spirits to integrate into the community and to support the locals by way of the purchasing of some of the shopping items from the local markets.
The weather was perfect the beach was idyllic and to wake up every morning to the view from our balcony was breath taking.
Over the 3 weeks we all worked hard and played hard and some good relationships were formed.
I am still amazed by the dedication of Carl and although I did not meet her, Becky, for their commitment to this project and the sacrifices they have made to ensure its continued success, have I benefited from this experience, I certainly feel that my time in Grenada has made me look at my life and has made me question whether I actually contribute to this world we live in and take for granted. I am conscious that I do not have a real passion in my life and I feel that I can address this by way of some worthwhile voluntary work working with animals in some capacity.
As to whether I was prepared, I am not sure you can ever be prepared for an experience like this unless you have been there before, the work was hard, worthwhile and rewarding, in the first week we thought we would not survive the next 2 weeks, by the end of the 3rd week no one wanted to come home and a few tears were shed saying goodbye.
Can anything be improved, I would not want to change a single thing, and even the fact that my suitcase was mislaid and I did not get it until the end of the 3rd day would not make me wish for anything to be different in any way.
I look forward to going back sometime and doing it again!!
Thanks, Denice
Ocean Spirits Research Assistant Volunteer July-August 2005 - Amy Morton, from the UK gives her feedback on her time volunteering in Grenada:
I volunteered with Ocean Spirits at the end of last summer, on a six week placement and had most possibly the best six weeks of my life!! Grenada is a warm and wonderful island and being a member of the Ocean Spirits team really gives you a true insight into the Caribbean way of life and you are really treated as a local. The project itself involved long hours sometimes but you often found yourself going to the beach to do night surveys in the hope of spotting a mother nesting. At one point myself another a volunteer had lost all hope of seeing a mother, and the other volunteers even went to the extremes of sneaking to the other end of the beach one night to build us a sand leatherback for us to find on our morning survey. Finally I got lucky and found myself with my head by a nesting mothers bum!! My job, to catch the eggs the mother was laying so that other members of the team could relocate the nest in the hope that the eggs would be more likely to survive than in the damp spot their mother had chosen. I met some wonderful people working in Grenada, spent the night on a real desert island, saw hatchlings nearly every day for six weeks and more importantly have come away from my Ocean Spirits experience with wonderful memories. I am now in my third year at University, and after my experience have decided to write my dissertation on sea turtles!! Thanks to everyone at Ocean Spirits and I guarantee that if you volunteer with this company you will receive brilliant treatment and times :)