Holidays at the museum include plenty of piracy

The Voyager New Zealand Maritime Museum is teaching an important lesson to youngsters these school holidays – pirates are sailors too.

The museum is running a Pirate Academy where children will learn the skills of a sailor.

A balance of fun and good challenging physical tasks will be combined with learning the necessary skills and attributes of a sailor and pirate.

Children will make their own pirate kit bag and fill it with booty of their own creation – a good lesson in resourcefulness and self sufficiency.

The importance of physical fitness for duty will be highlighted at the pirate boot camp and the newly released book The Pirate that Couldn’t Swim by Ryan Walters will be used to promote the importance of being safe around water.

The programme will include a treasure hunt and those taking part will also complete a seafaring fact book and have their photo taken for Voyager’s Facebook page.

The Pirate Academy will run from July 15 to 28 from 9.30am to 3.30pm daily and costs $5 for Auckland residents with accompanying adults free.