Oil on the beaches is like the low hanging fruit – it is relatively easy to clean-up compared to the oil on the rocks.

Removing oil spills off rocks is labour intensive and takes time.

Oil washes onto Motiti Island's rocks.

Oil on rocks also has a much greater environmental impact because tidal pools and rocks are the homes and food bowls for a range of sea life, birds and marine mammals.

Every rock and rock pool has to pretty much be cleaned by hand.

'It's all pretty manual labour, basic,” says Maritime New Zealand spokesman Nick Bohm.

'The three things they use most commonly is a plain old absorbent pad, like a household sponge.

'The other looks exactly like a household mop except the moppy bits are made up of some compoundy chemically thing that soaks up oil.

'The other is low pressure water, so if the oil is on a rock face, they put a little containment boom down the bottom and use low pressure high volume water to wash it off the rocks. It's a fancy version of cleaning your kitchen.”

It's the kind of campaign that is being prepared for the rugged coast of Motiti Island.

The iwi liaison team form the sore base went out to the island this week to discuss clean up plans with the whanau.

Tauranga dolphin watch skipper Graeme Butler says the oil has completely destroyed the marine ecology along the coast of the northern ends of Motiti, devastating the local sea life and the marine mammals it supports.

'You wouldn't know how many seals at Motiti have been covered in oil because Motiti has been covered in oil,” says Graeme.

'All round the northwestern half of the coast and the coast of the western side of Motiti and there's seals to the south, which might be okay, but right up the north coast and and along the north eastern coast, it's all rocks, beautiful reef, beautiful ecology covered in oil. It's all absolutely covered in oil.

'You could do so much damage trying to clean it up but the damage has been done. It's just sterilised everything. I don't know what the coast of Mayor Island Tuhua is like.

"Seal colonies are also on the Schooner Rocks, and there was a large pre-spill colony on Plate Island.”