Experiencing Marine Reserves at Whatuwhiwhi

We were so excited. Te Manga and Te Kauru were off the Whatuwhiwhi for our Experiencing Marine Reserves snorkelling session.

Te Kauru group shot while Te Manga students were snorkelling.

Fun in the water while we wait for our turn.

Beach games with Te Manga.

Te Manga preparing to go snorkelling.

One of the many fish species we had seen on our trip - Parore.  We also saw spotties, baby snapper, triplefin and a baby eagle ray.

Student Writing

Yesterday we drove on the bus with Te Manga to Whatuwhiwhi to go snorkelling. When we got there we ran out of the bus with our bags and were told to have some morning tea. After morning tea we went down to the beach to play while the other half of the class went snorkelling. When they were done it was Te Manga’s turn, so we stayed at the beach and played while we were waiting for them. At last, we could see snorkels coming closer. “Yay it's our turn,” everyone shouted. So we walked across the road and we slipped on some flippers, slapped on a wet suit and slipped on a mask and a snorkel. When we had put on all the equipment, we headed down to the beach. We crossed the road to the beach and then we dived into the water and started snorkelling.We saw bluefish, a little clear fish and some of us even saw a little jellyfish. It wasn't long until we had to start heading back. When we got to the beach we crossed the road and had a juicy.

By Isabella

On Friday, 29th of March my class Te Kauru and Te Manga went snorkelling at Perehape Bay. We went snorkelling with Isabel, it was so cool because my group got to go first out of all the groups. When we got ready I had to have flippers, a wetsuit and a mask, then we got into our wetsuit and chose our flippers, put toothpaste in our goggles and we were off ready to go to the water. SPLASH! We were in.  All of a sudden I couldn’t touch the bottom and I saw lots of seaweed. Then my buddy Manaia took a big breath and went straight down under us. Pop! up she came again, it was really funny because we all kept on bumping into each other when we came up from dolphin diving. Then all of a sudden Manaia was saying that she saw a parore, but I said you wouldn’t be able to see one here because they only live at Matai Bay.  Then l saw for myself because she showed me the parore. We carried on a little bit then I saw lots of parore. Isabelle blew her whistle once and told us to try to find a golf ball sponge, golf ball sponges look like an orangey yellow sort of sponge with little tentacle-like arms which looks quite strange!  AAAHHH!!! Something pinched me it was a floating crab but it really hurt, then the three whistle command went and then she just told us to look carefully to try to find some more different fish and some more golf ball sponges. I said I’ve seen one of the golf ball sponges it looks very strange, then we had to turn around and head back to shore. Fair enough though because my legs were aching.

By Iris