Today we finish the job of depositing 60 tonnes of mussels / kūtai into Ōkahu Bay. Over the past two weeks our friends at NIML/Sanford have made three trips across from the Eastern Firth of Thames, bringing 20 tonnes of kūtai on each trip.
The kūtai have been deposited across 6 different beds, three on shell and three on sediment, in a scaled-up experiment that aims to understand whether shell substrate makes a big difference to survival and recruitment of new kūtai. This work will inform our approach for restoration at scale.
The mussel barge Waikawau. 
Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei whānau greet the vessel 
Positioning the barge around a marker buoy 
Ready to deploy 
Kaimahi / workers deploy kūtai from the Waikawau. 
Deploying the kūtai 
Whānau scooping up floating kūtai. 
10 tonnes of mussels deployed into each plot. 
A nice day away from the office. 
The kūtai settling in. These shots taken about 24hrs after deployment. 
A Triple Fin makes its home.
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