2013.10.30 Day 3 V18/13

VOYAGE 18/13 DAY 3 WEDNESDAY 30 OCT 13G’day Shipmates,Welcome to day 3 of our adventure under sail. The ship continued to sail to the south east overnight. The wind remained west to north/westerly and varied from 6-18knots. It really has been quite a comfortable ride thus far and the majority of the crew appear to have found their sea legs in these accommodating conditions. Overnight the crew focussed on getting a handle on their watch duties. These include helmsman, lookouts and doing weather observations and engineering rounds, all essential things to keep the Ship running and for it to be safe 24 hours a day.Today continued our favourable run with the weather, again assisting us head towards our desired destinations. The morning commenced with a Wakey Wakey song from Red Watch. These guys had a busy morning watch, with climbing, adjusting sails and composing a Wake Up song . . . to which the remainder of the crew awoke after their first night at sea in Australia’s National Sail Training Ship.After another of Luke’s great spreads for breakfasts (including porridge, cereals, fresh tropical fruit, bacon, eggs, hash browns, toast and pastries) we gathered on the bridge for the morning brief. Today the crew heard from ‘Salty the Sea-Dog (Jen) who explained the origin of the phrase “Shake a leg”. Then Nana Diesel’ (Lindsey) also made her first appearance, giving tips on shipboard hygiene and cleanliness. She then taught the youthies the first of her nautical songs ‘Crabs and Seashells’ which provided a lead-in to the much-loved Happy Hour.Sadly it was around this time that a number of Youth Crew started to feel their first taste of sea sickness, But like the true champions they are, all soldiered on and didn’t let feeling bad stop them from participating in activities when they needed to.During the forenoon and early into the afternoon our amazing Navigator (Caitlin) gave some insights into her world and imparted some navigational knowledge and the tricks of the trade to the Youth Crew. After lunch we kicked off the second round of Rope Races (Lindsey the engineer’s favourite, which is where he is “King of the World!”). This activity is a competition between the watches to test their retention of ship knowledge on a variety of topics such as safety equipment, parts of the fore-and-aft and the square sails.The watches then consolidated what they knew, went for some climbs and set and furled sails as required. In the late afternoon we sailed between Volkner and White (Whakāri) Islands which are situated about 48 km off the Bay of Plenty coast. Whakāri is New Zealand’s most active cone volcano which has been built up by continuous volcanic activity over the past 150,000 years. About 70 percent of the volcano is under the sea, making this massive volcanic structure the largest in New Zealand. It last erupted on the 12th of Oct this year and today as we sailed past (at a range of less than a kilometre) we could see large plumes of gas and steam rising into the sky. This was quite a unique experience indeed.The intention is to remain at sea again overnight tonight and continue to make good ground towards East Cape, the eastern most point of New Zealand. If the weather allows us, we will anchor at Hicks Bay for a period tomorrow which will ensure the Youth Crew are able to go ashore and explore another area of this, the “land of the long white cloud”. Conditions are excellent and morale is high.Until tomorrow . . .Yours AyeCaptain Dion Curtis       “