i sea i care Ambassadors

By Elizabeth and Aarna

i sea i care is a special program for selected students in Grade 6 who care deeply about the environment and want to make the world around us a better place. Students who wanted to apply had to fill out an expression of interest form for i sea i care at the end of Grade 5. The Year 6, 2025 i sea i care Ambassadors are: Ethan, Aarna, Elizabeth, Maya, Grace & Kurtis. We will have four workshops throughout the year, one workshop in each term. Our Term 1 workshop was this week.

On the 18th of March 2025, the i sea i care Ambassadors, Aarna, Elizabeth, Grace, Maya and Ethan, travelled to Sorrento for our first i sea i care excursion. We left Highvale at 9am on a nice Tuesday morning. It took one hour and thirty minutes to get there. We arrived at 11am and walked down to the pier, where we saw little fish, big fish, seaweed, fish that looked like a Pufferfish and a really big stingray about the size of a dining table. After some waiting, the boat arrived and we grabbed our wetsuits, flippers and snorkels and hopped on the boat. After everyone got on, we were ready to depart to our first destination, the fur seals.

Following twenty minutes of boat riding, we reached the point where we got to swim with seals. We put on our flippers, and snorkels and plunged into the ice-cold waters of Port Phillip Bay. The Australian Fur Seals were very playful and talkative. Some even slid off their rock, into the water and swam underneath us. The seals were really cute and fun to swim with. After good thirty minutes of swimming with seals, it was finally time to get back on the boat and enjoy a nice warm cup of hot chocolate.

A short time later we reached our next destination, and hoped to see the Weedy Sea Dragon. Then once again we put on all our swimming equipment, and slid in to the water. After five to ten minutes of searching, we finally found a tiny Weedy Sea Dragon hanging around the seaweed. We almost didn’t see it because it was very well camouflaged in its environment. It was amazing to see the singular sea dragon riding the current. After a bit more observing we headed back to the boat and got ready to leave the bay and head back to school.

It was an amazing experience to swim out in the bay with wild marine life. In the end we had a lot of fun and made happy memories we would remember for a long time. A special thanks to Maya’s dad, Kav and Grace’s dad, Justin for driving us all the way down to Sorrento. And a very big thanks to Mrs Scully for taking time to come on this trip with us.