Day 02 – V11/25, Darwin to Broome

Ahoy readers of this fine journal. Day Two of Voyage 11/25 is well underway and we are officially out at sea and making our way into the sunset having left Darwin Harbour this afternoon. Our Youth Crew enjoyed their first night at sea and were up with the sun to experience their first Early Morning Activity session which doubled as an excellent icebreaker game to get to know each others names.

After a hot breakfast we conducted the age old ceremony of Colours at 0800IK before learning what the day had in store for us at our Morning Brief. With that plan established we got straight into it.

First up was a Captains Chat where I have the privilege of speaking to our crew about what it is to do a Voyage of Discovery onboard STS Young Endeavour and share some tips for success for the voyage. Immediately followed by our Watchleaders getting straight into a couple of hours of “deck safety” where we start learning the hard skills that we will need to sail this ship all the way to Broome. This took us through to lunch but it was only a short reprieve to enjoy the delicacies prepared by Big Sauce before our Youth Crew were back on deck and rounding out their initial basic training.

Once the watchleaders were satisfied we moved into a staff demonstration of setting and furling a couple of sails. With the cat out of the bag it was over to the Youth Crew and we worked our way through setting and furling our first set of sails to prepare for weighing anchor and heading out to sea.

Anchors aweigh by 1500IK and we were off. Bows to the north to exit harbour and the Youth Crew were straight back into it setting and furling sails to perfect their drill. The final hours of the afternoon were spent with all of our watches up the foremast and main mast having laid aloft to cast loose gaskets to get ready for our night at sea.

Neptune isn’t always kind to us and the winds abated once clear of harbour limits so we are cruising along nice and slowly waiting for the forecast 15kn South Easterly to pick back up so we can get sailing. We can’t control the wind but we can adjust our sails so we settled into watches overnight and continue to learn the ship, the watchkeeping routine and how to manage at sea over an extended period.

Tomorrow I will find our first Youth Crew authors so check back at follow in our adventure!

Captain Leups Out +