Day 2 – V01/26, Hobart to Hobart

It’s a wonderful, calm second day on the water. The sun has come out after a cloudy morning and we are all very excited for the journey ahead. After anchoring the ship at Sandy Bay overnight, we’re making our way down the D’Entrecasteaux Channel, around the bottom of Bruny Island to land in Adventure Bay tomorrow morning.

It’s my second day on board and while my brain is full to the brim with trying to learn all the sailing terms, I must say I’m enjoying myself. This trip was daunting, initially. Catching the plane all the way from Canberra to sunny Hobart. Walking across the gangway and waving goodbye. Slowly, though, I feel like I’m getting used to life on the ship.

We started our day with a musical awakening — namely Wake Me Up Before You Go Go – and headed out onto the deck for our Early Morning Activity. As we rubbed our tired eyes, the beautiful Derwent River mirrored an equally sleepy city. There was not a crack in the water for as far as we could see. What a way to start, I thought. After that, we headed down for showers and breaky (shoutout Chef Nate) and started to get excited. Questions began floating around the Youthie mess. Where are we going? Will we get to climb again? I wonder if there’s dolphins! Then…

We were introduced to Salty.

Salty is the number one legend of the seas. Knows the answers to every one of our landlubber queries. Captain Leups compared her knowledge to one of a deity. During our first Morning Briefing, Salty made her appearance. As did the rest of the crew. We were run through our day by all of them, and Salty told us that any questions we had, whether it was navigational, sailing terms, ship design etc., she could answer it. This made for quite comforting knowledge as none of us had any idea what things were yet.

Now, it is nearing 5pm and I find it amazing how much one can learn in just a day. We started off with our Captain’s Brief, running through everything we need to know about the voyage. He told us about the stages of the voyage. There’s the Crisis stage in the first couple of days, where we can find it hard to adjust to life at sea (seasickness, homesickness etc.). Then there’s Transition, where, as we get to know the ship and each other better, we gain our independence and feel more at home. Finally, there’s Arrival, where we are fully confident in running a ship as an all Youthie team with limited to no help from the Staffies.

Today, we also learned to set and furl sails. After an initial practice without actually setting the sails, then watching the Staffie demo, we managed to set and furl the sails with a bit of guidance. We learned phrases like “Off stopper!” and “Come up!” to command our teams. By the end, we were all confident in using these terms. I’m starting to see how, once we get a bit of practice, it is quite simple to learn the knots and set the sails. Maybe I’m caught in a second-day-naivety, but, if I learned as much as I did today every day of this journey, I think I’ll be pretty right.

Now, I better go. I’m on MasterChef duty tonight in the galley and I don’t want to be the one the rest of the Youthies blame when there’s no forks for dinner!

Lastly, hi Mum and Dad!! It’s Cara here. I’m having a wonderful time on the ship. Give Remi big hugs from me. Also, hello to Grandma, Nanna and Poppy, and Georgia and Bill. Love you all xx

See ya!

• Cara