Nick shares his experiences so far.

Hi..My name is Nick!

Flying the drone on Anse Bazarca

I am 22 years old and come from the cold, wet and flat Netherlands. Currently I’m on a 20 weeks internship as part of my education. I study Environmental Science and I’m in my third year.The first 10 weeks I spend in the North of Mahé, in Beau Vallon. There I worked with coral restoration and provided snorkelling tours for resort guests. We also build coral tanks where we used small coral fragments and grow them until they are big enough to be planted back into the ocean. Since half November I moved to the south, to AnseForbans, and joined the MCSS team there. Now I’m working on the Turtle Conservation project. This is a very nice project where we patrol beaches three times per week to check for turtle tracks and nests. I did not have a lot of knowledge about turtles before I came here but that is quickly changing. It is very interesting and beautiful to see a turtle nest and then make its way back into the ocean.

Checking the screen for any tracks

I am also testing the efficiency of drones to conduct beach patrols, so I get to fly the drone over some of the main nesting beaches to identify tracks and test whether it is faster to use the drone...which indeed it is, but walking the beach is still a must especially when there are indeed tracks and the team has to collect necessary data and check if the turtle laid.

I really love the life here in Seychelles and it was not very hard to get used to the climate and lifestyle here, except for the mountains though. It is going to be much harder to get used to the weather when I’m going back home in January (but I don’t want to think about that yet).