We spent the first 4 days in Borneo volunteering for a tropical research and coral conservation project on a tiny island called Pom Pom! The island itself is the definition of paradise - blinding white sand and crystal clear water and very little development. We stayed in tents just next to the beach and showered in the jungle, which surprisingly, we both really liked. It was possible to walk around the entire island in about 40 minutes!

The reefs around Pom Pom and neighbouring islands have unfortunately been severely damaged due to 'bomb fishing' - where home made bombs are used to kill schools of fish. Some of the long-term goals of the project we volunteered for are to educate the local people on the problems this causes and to ultimately make this a marine protected area. In the short term the project focuses on rebuilding the coral reefs and conducting surveys on the vast marine life including turtles and sharks!

There were around 10 volunteers helping out while we were there - most of which were divers repairing the coral reefs. Since Cat and I were snorkeling, our main daily task was turtle surveying....which essentially meant swimming between two piers for about an hour and counting how many turtles we saw and noting their species and sex. On our best day we saw 14 different turtles and were able to swim within inches of them! It's hard to describe just how amazing it was to be surrounded by that many turtles and not another person in sight! Best of all...we managed to capture most of it on my GoPro camera! See the video section for a quick taste...

When we were not chilling with turtles, we helped the others rebuild the coral reefs. This involved building bottle reefs by hand using cement and old bottles which were later planted on the damaged sea bed. We would then collect hard and soft coral from healthy reefs and move them to damaged reefs where they would be planted around our bottle reefs. Although the project has only been going for less than a year, it is already making a huge difference and the rebuilding of the reef is really effective.

On our last day on the island we decided to have one last snorkel for the road....and we are SO glad we did! After a couple of minutes in the water we stumbled across a huge turtle (known locally as George) who was grazing in the shallows. We spent the next hour or so just swimming with him and Cat managed to feed him some grass! We both got out the water feeling a little overwhelmed and it will definitely go down as one of the best moments of the trip - if not ever! There are some videos of us with George in the video section.

We were really sad to have to leave Pom Pom and the conservation project - both of us could have stayed a lot longer. However, Orangutans and Proboscis monkeys awaited us in Sepilok and we had a date with a mountain to look forward to....so not the end of the world!