Pink hard bumpy outside. It is easy to mistake for a rock. I’m talking about Paua just so you know.
So anyway, we were fishing at camp with a few parents and our lines kept on getting caught and snagged in the rocks so Dan, one of the parents, swam out to retrieve a line and he came back[without the line] saying that he had seen tonnes of paua.
I shot my feet thinking, “Finally!” “I’ve always wanted to do this,” I thought.
Our teacher, Mrs Fielder said, “If you sit on this fallen down log you get a go quicker.” so my rocket feet jumped up and my arms heaved themselves upwards and I zoomed over there. It was like I threw some of Harry Potter’s instant darkness powder I was so fast.
Then came the wait. It was so long. Waiting waiting and a little more waiting!
Hannah went for her turn. Time passed and went and in a little while it was my turn. As soon as I felt the hypothermic coldness, I dived under. When I got a little further out to sea I felt the rip gently pulling me across. It was like I had a dozen small turtles pulling at my body.
Beneath the surface the Paua were cowering amongst the gently swaying seaweed, clinging to the rocks for fear of the current. The knife had a hard time getting them off but Dan and I were on a mission and we would not come back empty handed. With Dan’s expertise, we dived down with knife at the ready. Ready to prize off the biggest.
Dan handed the paua to me to check its size. It clung to my hand, searching for safety, as I held it. But all I had in mind was getting them back to shore and learning how to gut them and prepare them for cooking.
Rob got them ready for dinner, with the addition of a few special ingredients. Paua fritters ... a succulent, mouth watering delicacy.
Red and purplish blue smoke grenades whizz over onto the field leaving a few coloured marks.
“Can we run through it?” Alex says casually.
“Yeah you might as well,” says a medic named Hamish.
All the rest of my group run through but it had basically fizzled out by then so I didn't really bother. We finished that station and went on to the ration station. A ration pack is food that is dehydrated so that it lasts for a long time and is energy for the soldiers. In the field all the food was packaged and brown which is a big plus as it does not reflect the sun.
I think this is a clever design idea. Imagine this ... a sniper with a rifle sees a reflection in the sky. He looks down and there you are. Bang! You are gone. Dead. Lying on the hard sandy ground. Boiling and in a pool of your own blood that is rapidly getting soaked into the sand.
One of the medics, a corporal, has been to Afghanistan. I reckon that’s good because she can help other people. I can't imagine what it would be like over there. Medics are in a no combat zone and only some carry a sidearm.
I learnt that most medics train as nurses and work in hospitals before they go into the army. Only people who need special training, like a trauma doctor, train in the army. I thought that they trained in their country’s army to be a nurse.
I learnt a lot about the army from their visit and it made me imagine how hard it would be to be living in Afghanistan.