Two shiploads full of Royal New Zealand Navy personnel are spending the weekend in Tauranga as part of a training mission for officer cadets.

HMNZS Manawanui and HMNZS Hawea docked at the Port of Tauranga this morning carrying about 50 crew in total – who will remain here until their expected departure on Monday.

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HMNZS Hawea arriving in Tauranga today.

HMNZS Manawanui is the Navy’s diving support and mine counter-measure ship while HMNZS Hawea is a protector-class inshore patrol boat that performs border and fisheries protection patrols.

The Navy is visiting Tauranga as part of a training mission for officer cadets who recently completed the shore side of their navigation training.

HMNZS Manawanui captain, Lieutenant Commander Kerry Driver says for some of the officer cadets, this training voyage is their first time at sea.

Consequently, entering Tauranga Harbour as part of the bridge crew was a stressful, on-the-job learning opportunity, which saw cadets turn theory into practise while dealing with an ebb tide and a light westerly.

Tauranga is a popular port for Navy ship visits because there’s plenty to do, says Kerry. Sometimes crew play local sports teams, but that has not been organised this trip.

A dive at the Mercury’s on the way down scored crew scallops for dinner. The ship is stocked with a large rack of civilian wetsuits, property of the crew, as well as a number of surf boards in storage.

A number of Tauranga locals reside in the permanent crew, including Able Medic Alice Longhurst, a former Tauranga Girls’ College student who joined the Navy after school because she didn’t want to go to university.

Alice spoke to a few people from Tauranga who had joined the Navy and says it seemed like a good idea.

She did the South East Asia voyage on Te Mana this year and has a military medical qualification roughly equivalent to that of an ambulance service paramedic, while also working and continuing training with the crew.

Able Diver Pumau Campbell completed his last two years of high school at Tauranga Boys’ College and followed his brother into the Navy upon graduating.

“I wanted to join for the travel, it looked quite fine. And I wanted to get a trade and not have to pay to do it.”

Pumau had only completed a couple of dives, two years before he joined up. He is now working his way through the Australian Diver Accreditation Scheme as a construction diver, an internationally recognised qualification for technical proficiency and experience.

Meanwhile he’s travelled to Bahrain, San Diego, and in the South Pacific; Noumea, Honiara, and Vanuata, working with the Navy’s dive team destroying WWII munitions.

Last time HMNZS Manawanui was scheduled to visit Tauranga, she was diverted to Raglan to salvage the wrecked aircraft of 2 Degrees CEO Eric Hertz and his wife Kathy.