Day 10 – Twilight Sail on Darwin Harbour

Ahoy there Shipmates, A well deserved night’s rest at anchor in Darwin Harbour was had by all. I think everyone onboard slept, as soundly as they could and for good reason, most were exhausted from Command Day, but that didn’t stop us from conducting our usual Early Morning Activity on the upper decks to the beat of Sail Master Kyle’s energetic tunes. After breakfast we launched into the usual Morning Brief and Happy Hour. We weighed anchor at 0830 and berthed at HMAS Coonawarra at 0900. Once secured alongside it was out all rubbish to the allocated skip bin and then the Youthies got ready to proceed ashore to do their ‘end of voyage chats’ and then have some free time for a swim at the lagoon if they felt like it. Keely prepared packed lunches for everyone to take with them. Whilst the youthies were ashore we fuelled the Ship and did some grocery shopping in preparation for this evening’s activity, a twilight sail on the harbour, hosting members of the Young Endeavour Advisory Board as well as some Navy Senior Leadership Group who were in town for a multi-national Navy exercise. The crew returned onboard at 1530 and we got ready to embark our guests. We sailed at 1730 and had an exciting time sailing around the warships anchored in the harbour in some of the best wind conditions we had all voyage. The youthies were encouraged to mingle with our guests and tell them about their experiences on the voyage. We returned alongside HMAS Coonawarra to disembark our guests at 1900. On arrival Suzanne Daniel, a member of the Young Endeavour Advisory Board, made a speech thanking the guest for coming along and the crew for doing a great job of hosting the event. She also invited one of the Youthies, Naomi Jones, to speak of her decision to undertake the voyage and her experiences onboard. Naomi spoke very frankly and courageously about why she chose to do the voyage and shared with us her thoughts and feelings about her experiences onboard. Once the last guest was ashore we departed the basin and proceeded to anchor in the harbour. The last thing on the agenda for the day was the post-voyage administration. The youthies completed a feedback questionnaire on the voyage and wrote a letter to themselves about their experiences onboard, which will be posted to them in 6 months. We then encouraged everyone to ‘hit the sack’ after another long exhausting day! Until tomorrow. Yours Aye Captain Mike