On Friday 26 February, the Year 9 Advance class went on their first adventure together. The class was required to meet in front of the gym before 8.30 am but it was about 8.40 am when we left on our journey. We boarded the school bus for the drive to Portsea, taking a quick stop to refuel the bus on the way.  We arrived at Portsea at 10.15 am, had food and played around in the park until the diving instructors arrived, with the equipment ready for us to use. We left our bags and food in the bus and were taken over to where we were to be equipped with the snorkels, flippers, and wetsuits.

We walked out to the boat at about 10.30 am and clambered on, one at a time. After a short briefing about what we were going to do, the seven minute ride to Pope’s Eye began. On the way the captain of the ship provided us with interesting information about how the ecosystem formed and some history about Melbourne and the bay.

Because of the poor current we were not allowed to go around the outside of the formation, so instead we went around the inside. We saw many different species of fish and kelp hugging the wall of rocks, thriving in their environment which gets blasted with nutrients from the current nearly all hours of the day.  We observed some Australasian gannets (large seabirds), and Australasian fur seals baking in the sun. The smell above water was repugnant but nothing to compare with what met us after we hopped back on the boat and travelled a few minutes to Chinaman’s Hat. 

Chinaman’s Hat is another place where seals like to hangout, but this time there were about thirty of them. The smell hit us like a slap in the face and we were amazed at how hard the seals fought when they were ‘playing around’. We swam around the structure out in the middle of the bay. Due to the time and how close to the heads we were we had to battle a constant rip, although we did get to do some nice swimming with seals after a little bit of waiting. 

We returned to shore after a few hours of swimming, took off our wetsuits and got changed into some clean clothes. We hopped on the bus to travel back, stopped at a Maccas to have some lunch and to have a small break. Eventually, we arrived back at 3.10 pm so we were allowed to leave from school immediately. Overall, the trip was a blast and we learnt lots about Melbourne and the bay and we also got to know each other a lot more as well. Thanks to Mr Evans for organising the trip and to Miss Powell for coming along as well.

Piri Faid

Year 9 Advance