I thoroughly enjoyed my second time being on the island. I wish I can come back again soon! While... read more
I thoroughly enjoyed my second time being on the island. I wish I can come back again soon! While... read more
TRACC was one of the best experience ever! I started as an inexperienced diver, but once I was... read more
HEY YOU! Yes you YOU TOTALLY MISSING OUT A BIG TIME IF YOU MISSED OUT THIS PLACE RIGHT HERE! Especially MALAYSIAN! People all over the globe from different continents traveling 3-4 transits just to get here and you who is living inside the country wouldn’t take this opportunity?! WHYYYYYYYYY???!
I am truly blessed to be selected as an science intern at TRACC Spend 6 months in the island; staying in the tent ️ drink coconut water from the treemeet a lot of new awesome people unlimited diving watching turtle swimming gracefully on a daily basis cool working dives (hammering underwater! can you imagine?! How cool is that?!) most importantly i get to contribute to the ocean and it feels hella rewarding Thank you TRACC for this lifetime opportunity ️
Last year in june, I spent 2 weeks at tracc volunteering and diving. I met several great people from all over the world, I am still in contact.
I liked it so much that when I came back home to Germany, I quit my job to start my Divemaster Training with tracc. I arrived back on Pom Pom Island in october 2018
and stayed until end of march 2019. From tuesday to saturday we worked all together in different topics like surveys, artificial reefs and COTs hunting.
On sundays we could select a dive spot around different islands close by.
The accomondation is either in a room in the longhouse or in tents. Each tent has a vantilator which makes it cool enough to sleep.
My favorit part was building and dropping the artificial reefs. As economist its really rare for me to build something with my hands by myself. Seeing them few weeks later under water giving home for corals, invertebrates and fish was amazing. I learnt a lot about marine life, environment protection and the social and political difficulties in malaysia.
It was great that I was accepted and warm welcomed even though I don't have a marine background and only was a beginner with knowledge about environmental impact and sustainable lifestyle.
Concerning the diving you can expect around pom pom island: many turtles, nudis, shrimps, crabs. Butterflyfish, Puffers, Lionfish, Triggerfish and many many more. I suggest to follow tracc on facebook and instagram to get an idea of what they do and how living on the island looks like. I miss it and definetly want to go back soon.
I was on TRACC for five months doing the alevel course which I absolutely loved. Not only were all the staff really helpful but the dive team made me feel safe when diving as I had only had dive four times prior and only being an open water diver. By the end I my time at TRACC I had qualified as a rescue diver with 70 dives. All of the dive sites I visited differed, all containing a lot of life and diversity, nothing big but a lot of cute invertebrates and fish species.
The alevel course was very well organised by hazel and Maddie (my teacher). The classes were all very insightful and engaging for the students. It was amazing to see everything that we were talking about when diving, especially coral formation and the fish respiring in the water. Every week the students would conduct a study session which was really fun and helpful as we could make up how we could revise; scavenger hunts, role play games, or word games.
The visa run was organised for us to travel around Malaysia abit which was good as I hadn’t had the chance to travel much.
The food on the island was in good moderation most of the time with a wide variety of vegetarian dishes and every other night chicken would be available for dinner. TRACC improved the food variety by the end of my trip including a lot of traditional Malay dishes.
The variety of people I met ranged in ages and nationally but all have the same passion and interest in saving the environment.
I would love to go back to TRACC in the future, possibly returning as a science intern.
I spent 4 incredible months on Pompom. In a span of four months I got to see how Tracc started new projects, improved already existing project and outfaced old project with newer, better and more effective ways to conserve a small but beautiful part of the Celebes Sea. I got to help with all project but mostly worked with the new ARC reef project to stabilize the damaged reef crest around the Island.
I arrived as a stranger but left as family, with Tracc you live with the same people for an extended period of time on a small tropical Island. You get to meet and get really close to people in all ages from all over the world.
I took my Rescue diver cert during my time at Tracc, the course was structured well with a lot of hands on experience. I feel like I evolved as a diver, partly due to my course, but mainly due to the sheer amount of diving you do every day. With 2-4 dives a day 5-6 days a week you can quickly get a lot of experience under your belt. Before I arrived at Tracc I had a lot experience with recreational diving, but a limited understanding of conservation, marine ecosystems and working underwater. I left with a new understanding on what is going on under the surface and through that also what is happening above it, this new understanding of the sea, people and myself gave me a new and deeper love for diving.
I can’t put it more plainly, if you are thinking about visiting Tracc, DO IT! I can’t recommend it enough.
This was my second trip to TRACC and loved it just as much if not more than my previous trip.
I was really impressed with how the reef had developed in the 3 years between my visits, there was so much more life! The diving was amazing, with some really fun house reef diving and Sunday trips to other islands. I felt really involved in the conservation work, regularly planting coral, surveying and cleaning the house reef.
The evenings were spent watching the sunset on the beach, having a few beers and playing games.
Would really recommend to anyone looking to have a fun time and do lots of great diving!
We just left TRACC after spending 3 amazing months with beautiful humans.I have to admit, I wasn't sure about staying right away 3 months in a tiny island. It was my first long experience in an island and I loved it.
As we were already Advanced when we arrived, we decided to not take any diving course before the last month in order to gain diving experience and, above all, learn more about marine conservation which was totally new for us.
We learned so much this past weeks and are really proud to having be part of all the projects and especially the ARC REEF one. Even if you don't have any science background, the passionate TRACC team will do their best to make you more knowledgeable and aware.
This place is for everyone willing to be part of something bigger than themselves. It is a place where you will not only become a better diver (by diving a lot, having work dives and also diving workshop) but will learn a lot about marine conservation, corals, fishes, substrates, invertebrates,... So if you have the opportunity to go there, don't think twice, just go, be curious, dive a lot, speak with all the staff and try to learn the more you can. Personally, we just encourage anyone who wants to go there to learn few words of Malay in order to speak with the local staff. They are precious and have as well a lot to share.
Again, thank you to everyone! You are a wonderful team.