In the morning we did some harbour furls (neatly rolled up the square sails), then briefly headed out to sea so that we could come back again for all the family members on shore. We stayed up on the yards for the berthing, and fired cannon blasts as is tradition. The tradition being that by having everyone up on the yards, there is nobody to reload the cannons - and since they have already been fired the ship poses no threat.
On our last full day, we had a half day sail with local people with disabilities. It was very rewarding, although we went out past the heads so they could see some whales (we saw several) which caused a lot of them to get seasick.
I was part of the Youth Crew Theatre Crew, and we dressed up in the ship costumes and performed our nursery rhyme style shanties for the guests.
As I mentioned earlier, every morning the staff held a morning brief. One of our command day tasks was to host our own. Rick was our Nanna, Ash gave the long winded Nav talk, and I was Salty Seadog with the help of my assistant Emma. To show of our newly learned knot-tying skills - one task was to build a Hammock that could support the entire youth crew: When our 24 hours were up, the crew assessed how we had met each task.
Day 8 was command day - the day when control of the ship was handed over to us youth crew for 24 hours. At the handover we were given a list of various tasks to complete. From easy ones (don’t get sunburnt) to hard one’s (our navigation challenge).
One of our first tasks was to get a photo taken with all crew members aloft. I am on the topsail yard (middle), second from the left - next to the other Alex.
The weather was slightly improved once we got to the mainland, and were protected by Twofold Bay. We went ashore at Eden and went to visit the Eden Whale Museum, where they keep the skeleton of Old Tom, a killer whale that helped the fishermen lure in other whales and would share in the kill - eating the tongue and leaving the rest for the fishermen.
Somehow at the Dock waiting to get taken back to the ship I fell in the harbour, causing much amusement for everyone present.
We had a pretty chilled morning sailing on the sea, with a descent speed and good weather. After dinner this awesome looking cloud came.
Turns out awesome looking clouds like that mean there is a storm coming and we got smashed by some pretty intense weather and had to bring a lot of our sails down.
After that taking that video I got to climb to the topgallant yard to tie the gaskets (fold up the square sails), and while up there saw what was either a sun fish or manta ray come up next to the ship.
The previous night we had an anchor watch instead of our normal 4-hour shift in which only 3 people were on watch, and only for an hour so as to keep an eye on the boat and perform rounds.
In the afternoon we had sail theory, and were told the purpose of each of the sails and how they affect the ship’s movement. We spent the afternoon sailing around the bay, whilst watching all the nearby humpback whales.
We had the guts shift from 12-4 in the morning. It is difficult to navigate at night when there is no land in sight and lights just come out of nowhere. When you are on watch you have a watch officer (Dion from the staff crew was ours), someone on the helm, lookouts looking for lights/hazards and the rest of the watch is just there in case something needs to happen with the sails.
We were on morning watch and everyone was still pretty depressed and sick. I had another go on the helm and found it much easier second time round. Those of us that felt up to it (Elke, Rob and I - Scott despite being fine the night before was probably the sickest in the morning) climbed up with Paul to watch the sunrise.
Shortly after our watch we changed course, heading south towards Jervis Bay and instantly I felt better as we were no longer working against the swell and the rocking wasn’t as severe.
First thing every morning we were woken by a song being played over the loudspeaker. On most days we had to come up on deck and do laps of the ship until everyone was up. Then every morning there is a morning brief.
At morning brief we heard the plan for the day from our Sailmaster Kristy, a quote from Captain Damien, an always long talk from the Navigator Matt about our current position and where we were going, as well as a visit from Nanna (Mick the Engineer in a dress and wig) who raided the berths for clothes/stuff left on the floor (and not neatly put away in our lockers like they are meant to be) to be shown off to everyone.
