Growing Through Volunteering
What you do with the choices you get to make will determine the choices you have in the tomorrow of your life. You can elect to stay where you are now, or you can choose to make your life different…
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7 One-of-A-Kind Experiences as a LAMAVE Volunteer
Just like any other volunteering opportunity, signing up with LAMAVE is a great way to contribute your time and skills to something bigger – marine conservation. But joining LAMAVE is unique in itself because it is more of a commitment – you have to be passionate and dedicate at least three months of your life to volunteering with us.
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A Whole New World
My girlfriend and I took a year off to travel around the world and we wanted to volunteer with a few conservation organisations along the way. We jumped on the opportunity as soon as we heard of LAMAVE. We could tell that this experience would shape what we will do for the rest of the trip. And for good!
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Learning curves, good company and questionable Tagalog pronunciation
I am now nearing the end of my three-month placement in Puerto Princesa and it has flown by! The last ten weeks have been a truly wonderful experience, full of learning curves, good company, questionable Tagalog pronunciation and stunning whale shark encounters. When I told a few people at home what I would be doing next with my life they didn’t quite believe what I said…
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A moment of reflection
I’ve been struggling to write about my experience on Apo island for quite some time now. I could elaborate extensively about the responsibilities of a volunteer, and explain how the project has the potential to protect the sea turtles and the community they support. Or preach incessantly about how urgently the ocean needs protection.
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Palawan – The paradise of the Philippines
I’m back. Once again I find myself back in this crazy and beautiful country of the Philippines. Where travelling from one place to another sometimes takes hours, if not days with a bus, jeepney, trike and two boats. Where finding a quick feed at the bus station means getting another bag of garlic peanuts (yum) and a bunch of bananas. It also means being back in the amazing crystal clear - blue waters where whale sharks, manta rays, turtles and eagle rays live.
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Close encounters - out of the blue a shark I didn’t recognise appeared!
Before starting my volunteer placement with LAMAVE I knew I would be spending plenty of time in water with the largest fish in the ocean, Whale Sharks, little did I know the close encounter I was soon to experience….
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Living and loving the simple life
I’ve learned to love this basic life we have on Apo Island. Waking up to dog barks and rooster calls at 6am and just sitting by the balcony enjoying the morning view with my cup of coffee and bread. Watching the team rushing to change into their research outfit and heading out for the first morning session at 7am. It’s always a joy to watch and identify the turtles in the water…
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RUV Life
I was moments away from booking my long-awaited holiday to Sulawesi when I saw the call for volunteers for the pilot manta project at Manta Bowl on the LAMAVE facebook back in 2017. I dropped everything, sent an email straight away and intentionally didn’t even “Like” the post to avoid drawing more attention to it until I knew I had the spot. (Please don’t judge me :D). I knew instantly I wanted to be part of the project! I love nudibranchs but I LOVE mantas!
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Salamat Apo
Another day on the island. 5:30 am and the sun is already peeping through the palms and colouring the sky with the softest tones. The water is looking serene and undisturbed, it is holding in its transparency all the secrets of the amazing reef we are lucky to call a survey area. We prepare and leave home walking among the same familiar smiles that give us their ‘maayong buntag’ (good morning) when we pass by…
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A Biologist's Elegy
After three months flicking through slide after slide of the same three hundred or so whale sharks, you wonder about the delicate dictation of genes that shape the subtle nuances between phenotypes. Some of their patterns are remarkably similar, different in only the breadth of a stripe here or the completeness of a circle there. Others are perhaps distorted reflections of another…
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Meet the LAMAVE Scholars- TG Bonjuana Canal
Meet our scholars! Each LAMAVE research project has at least one Filipino Scholar who is sponsored to join our team. These are our amazing LAMAVE Scholars! Our latest scholar is TG Bonjuana Cañal who has just finished her placement with our whale shark research team in Northern Mindanao. Here’s what the Filipina conservationist had to share with us…
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Crossing the Sulu Sea to the Island of “You will enjoy”
The next stage of the BRUV project for the LAMAVE team was to survey a small group of islands in the center of the Sulu Sea under the Cagayancillo municipality. The islands consist of Cagayancillo, where we are based and the largest of the three, Calusa and Cawilli.
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