The navy believes it鈥檚 operating under public misconceptions about what happens on Bentinck Island.
For a start, the explosives training is not even military in nature. There are no guns at work. No bombs, grenades or land mines are exploded. Warships don鈥檛 anchor off Bentinck Island and practice their gunnery bombarding the beach.
Sailors and other servicemen don鈥檛 explode military devices such as an anti-tank mines.
They don鈥檛 even practise blowing up the improvised explosive devices they might encounter on a tour of Afghanistan.
Instead, the range on Bentinck Island is used to teach sailors and servicemen how to use explosives in demolition work. And it鈥檚 done on dry land, not in the water.
The training prepares sailors to use explosives for clearing logs that can tangle things such as steel cables.
Or they learn to cut heavy steel with explosives to prepare them to deal with something such as a wrecked vessel blocking a channel.
Trainees are taught, again and again, the safety measures for setting off an explosive charge, whether by a timed fuse lit with a match or via an electrical charge.
The navy is proud of its safety record and reports no accident has occurred on the Bentinck Island range in the past 20 years.
Lt. (N) Andre Bard, of Fleet School Pacific, said safety is top priority on the Bentinck Island range.
Bard said it is essential to become fully aware and mindful of the destructive forces at work, And that only happens by exploding the real thing.
鈥淭he explosives are large enough to kill you if you do something wrong,鈥� he said.