Waterwise

We hope you enjoy Charlotte's description of our day at Manly beach through the eyes of a starfish!!

Waterwise

The weak current of the sea washed me closer to my home for the day. The golden gritty sand of Manly beach seemed to go on forever and a troupe of kids scrambled over the grassy banks chattering away excitedly.

I was swept smoothly over to the other side of the golden beach and clung onto the slimy, grey pontoon. The children zoomed over to the colorful plastic kayaks like race cars and started debating over which boat they would get. “ The blue one is mine!” one child bellowed. “But I beat you to it” another complained breathlessly. “It's mine!” they all fell about giggling. The children sat on the twinkling sand as their teacher (as excited as they were) quickly but thoroughly explained how to paddle and stuff like that. Then she split the children into two equal groups.

The first group of children dived into the awaiting kayaks as the second group held the boats still. Finally they were ready and the tips of their gleaming white paddles powered through the quiet salty water wonderland. They paused ten metres away from the grey pontoon where i was watching it all like a movie and they all parked up beside each other and the children on each end climbed hesitantly over the colourful plastic kayaks and resumed their paddle but i just realised that they were paddling towards me!

I decided to stay and watch from my hiding place  then i heard and saw a girl jumping happily from the pontoon When she was submerged in water I noticed a big grin spread like melted butter across her face as she felt the cool salty heaven of the sea wash over her skin. One by one they all took turns leaping off the pontoon, sending little crystals of water up into the air. I will always see them smiling. The children wanted to jump into the water again but the teacher was firm and told them there was no time but as far as i was concerned they had all the time in the world.

Just as they were about to paddle away a sudden wave of current pulled all of my five arms off the pontoon and washed me away over to the blue optimist sailboats.

I stuck to a smooth  dark grey stone and stared at the optimist boats being shoved back and forth by the steady, strong motion of the shallow waves.

Suddenly three girls came into view as they had obviously noticed the reality of losing  an optimist. They struggled to push the reluctant boats up the beach. Their teacher finally pulled them away to discuss what they would learn next. In exactly two minutes the same children who were paddling on the kayaks (including the three girls) were back for helpful ocean experience on the optimist sailboats. The lovely parent helpers taught the children the basics of controlling a sailboat in powerful wind (too bad the was not a lot of that) then the first young sailors leaped into the blue boats and sailed away. I couldn't see much of the first group sailing as a hungry seagull spotted me for lunch!

The seagull lost its sudden interest in me for lunch and flew steadily through the weak useless wind and I noticed the second group were ready to set sail  in the Optimist  boats. They started sailing away, occasionally shreaking after spotting thick masses of seaweed. By ten minutes the wind had died down completely and everyone decided to pack up everything.

The children started to pull out the centerboards from the sailboats and heaved the optimists onto the mini trailers with flat tires and struggled to drag them up the beach. Beside the boating  club house, I could hear the sharp spray of water shooting out from the green, snake-like hoses that were washing the salty water and crystal sand off the bright kayaks and optimist sailboats. The children were stuffing their life jackets into an already over stuffed navy plastic box overflowing with clean and salty water, washing  off most of the salt water and sand off the soaked life jackets that were responsible for the safety of the kids during the activities. Now the kayaks and optimists were being stored away and the life jackets were being hung up to dry, the children all went to go and get changed then they all sat down with wet hair and thanked Mr Cornelius and then they slowly departed and left for  school.

The main reason of water wise is to teach children how to do fun water activities safely because New Zealand has lots of coastline so children are more likely to play in the water so they need to learn to be safe.

By Charlotte Rose Lockie