Day 10 – The onboard penultimatum

Ahoy dear readers, at anchor St Bees Island this evening as I write this, the penultimate log of our fantastic voyage from Airlie Beach and I must say, it has been a wonderful adventure. Ships staff have completed all post voyage administration, including voyage debrief and a safety team meeting, because we are uber professionals. And now the youth crew are all but in bed… I’m about to shift into pj’s myself and get some much needed (albeit unobtainable) beauty sleep haha… er, but let me just recap our day for you… So, we weighed anchor this morning at 0830 from the northern end of St Bees/Keswick Island and set square sails for the final time, as we shaped a course west then south east for the southern end of St Bees/Keswick Island. On the way we conducted happy hour, a final set of rope races, ate lunch and then came to anchor around 1300. Youthies and staff then proceeded to lay-aloft to tiddly sea-furl the squares and mainsail. We need to look fabulous for our final farewell tomorrow and fabulous we do look indeed. Youth Crew then confided in their watch leaders for a final talk to debrief the voyage, and provide us with some feedback. We’re after continuous improvement here folks. Meanwhile, Keely knocked up some bellisimo pizzas and we had a bon appetito alfresho din din up on the decko. Grazie milo chefo (Yep – fluent). To round out the evening we had a ships concert, with all watches and the staff, performing skits for our entertainment. Please don’t take yourself too seriously at home, kids 😉 Then a final recapping of the voyage in the form of a photographic slide show, and in song, as Gella and the youthies sang a lovely number celebrating the voyage. 5 stars. Well, that’s that. This is the final night onboard YE for V10/21. 10 Days ago 10 youth crew from places various, came together to sail this vessel, have fun and challenge themselves. They have not only done that, but have faced and overcome fears and learnt a lot about themselves and each other. Tomorrow they will leave with new skills, improved persistence, resilience and adaptability, as well as generally knowing they are more capable than what they probably thought. And of course, having made great new friends – most probably, friends for life. It never gets old for us staff members, as we truly love our work. Captain Adam Charlie Farley+