Ecotourism Nusa Penida

My volunteer host (and friend) Festi <3 on the diamond beach lookout

As we've heard, I arrived in Bali desperately down bad, without my bag and a good chunk of my dignity. Thankfully Festi, from Ecotourism Nusa Penida, was there to meet me at the Penida dock, because I was battling demons and close to bailing to an Airbnb on the mainland. Festi was adamant that I come to Penida right away, and that it would be easier to sort my things if I was with people who could help. I was in no place to argue.

Festi and the Ecotourism crew were incredibly hospitable from my arrival. I got connected to the experience through Worldpackers, and was a little apprehensive of the stay since work-for-housing experiences can be a gamble.

My lodging was a bungalow walking distance from the main office, where they brought me a little breakfast tray every morning. Festi was the main coordinator of our activites, and we also worked a lot with Nyoman, the leader of Ecotourism Nusa Penida. Nyoman is employed in Penida's mayoral office as well, and much of his time was spent collaborating with other communities around the island.

Everyday, Festi started out activities with an educational presentation. She has a degree in marine sciences and taught us a lot about the ecosystem we were operating in, but I also learned a lot from her about the social systems the Balinese are part of, and the ways they're taking responsibility for their natural resources. Ecotorusim NP is just one of many organizations on the island that have started to intentionally try and fight climate change and the disastrous impact it's having on the ocean engine. Organizations like this are all grassroots. They have little to no support from their governments, and even less of a voice on the international stage. It was humbling to see people stepping up to a seemingly insurmountable challenge. My environmentalism might be educated and idealistic, but I'm still so comfortably insulated from the very real consequences of our abuse of the natural world. Island communities like the one on Penida are not receiving nearly enough support, and so they've decided to support themselves.

Our first day of work there were three other volunteers with me, and Festi started our presentation on coral propagation. We'd be rescuing coral fragments from the ocean floor that had been broken and retying them onto a structure where they could grow from. As long as hard coral isn't resting in sediment, it will quickly grow again and propagate outwards. It's incredible that humans have managed to make an environment that's inhabitable for such resilient and flexible organisms. During our first day, we were out snorkeling for our restorations but also ended up navigating a swarm of moon jellyfish that had drifted up close to shore, potentially for breeding. Moon jellyfish don't often sting but there's a mental game to being suspended in open water with their little purple bells bumping against your exposed skin. Another girl in my group had a brief panic when she felt like the jellyfish were chasing her. Festi quickly surfaced and tried to help calm her, shouting "Don't worry, they cannot chase you! They do not have eyes!"

Over the denser parts of the reef, the water was thick with moon jellies so tiny you wouldn't have even seen them, unless you were really looking. Tiny stinging kisses peppered my lips and cheeks as I snorkeled through, like little aquamarine love notes.

After I finished my scuba cert, Festi and I also spent time scrubbing the 'coral castles' they had built. Using coarse grained brushes, we scrubbed the coral to remove invasive purple algae that had latched onto the reef, as well as bunches of soft coral, which can spread incredibly quickly and limit the growth of other integral organisms. Hard coral is structurally very important to build up reefs and is the most damaged by climate change. The maintenance was a lott less rigorous than my certification dives, so I could last longer on my tank. It felt like another world down in the reef, scooting around lionfish and freeing up hard coral for curious rainbowfish to dart in and start grooming. I was incredibly disoriented everytime a small boat passed overhead, because the sound conductivity of water just made it sound like the boat engine was coming from every angle.

There were a few other girls my first few days on Penida, but for a good week of my volunteering, it was just Festi and I. She motored me all over the island on her scooter, often following harder tasks with a more fun excursion. We spent one morning farming seaweed with a nimble woman who couldn't have been younger than 65. Festi watched from the beach while I attempted to follow the farmer through the tide pools that produced her livelihood. I fumbled through lines of seaweed and struggled to untie them from their mooring posts, and watched the farmer accumulate armful after arumful ahead of me. She didn't speak a word of english, but I had no trouble interpreting her laughter as I tripped from one propogating pool into another. Festi and I also spent a day planting mangroves on another small island, close to Penida. Upon making landfall, she declared that she'd be showing me the best and worst of the island. We first motored around the island to see a massive garbage dump just inland of one of the beaches, piles of plastic and waste just stinking and fuming in the sun. Festi explained that all the increased tourism in their region had just brought more trash. Any litter inland was washed out to the ocean during monsoon season, and washed up on their beach. Just 30 minutes up the road, and we were rowing through mangrove forest thriving off the coast of the island.

Getting to know Festi was such a highlight of Nusa Penida. We shared meals and hot ginger jamu, spent upwards of 45 minutes on her scooter some days, dozed on the Ecotourism dock after snorkeling, and shared a lot about our lives. The slight language barrier made things all the more funny, and there's a certain kind of freedom in trying to explain your feelings and experiences in the simplest phrases possible.