Day 3 – Sea to Eden

G’day Shipmates,Welcome to day 3 of our adventure under sail. The ship continued motor-sailing south overnight along the NSW coast. The wind remained a light northerly and the swell was 0.5 metres from the east just causing a gentle rocking motion. It has been a challenge for a few crew members as they struggle to gain their sea legs in the light 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 24/day.As the sun rose, a cheerful Wakey Wakey song (attached below) from Blue Watch, who had the morning watch, encouraged the remainder of the crew to get out of bed after their first night at sea in Australia’s National Sail Training Ship.After another of Luke’s spectacular breakfasts (including porridge, cereals, fresh tropical fruit, bacon, eggs, French toast and pastries) we gathered on the bridge for the morning brief. Today the crew heard from ‘Salty the Sea-Dog’ (Sandy) who explained the nautical origin of the common expression ‘to Shake a Leg’. ‘Nana Diesel’ (Sumo) 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’. After setting the Jib and Mainsail the crew turned-to cleaning stations, or ‘Happy Hour’ as we call it! The crew spent the remainder of the Forenoon watch doing deck work, practising setting and furling the staysails.Following Luke’s delicious lunch, we kicked off the first round of Rope Races (Sumo the Engineer’s favourite). 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 bonus round was a food-off with Zooper Doopers, won convincingly by Red Watch. Sail Master Paul then gave a brief on setting and clewing-up square sails and the crew set the first of the square sails, the Topsail.At 1630 Young Endeavour anchored in Snug Cove, Twofold Bay, our planned anchorage for the night. An hour later we had a fabulous teak-deck BBQ for dinner, after which we commenced the activity known as ‘3-way-chats’. Earlier in the day the youth crew were broken up into groups of 3 and had to learn about each other to enable them to speak for 2-3 minutes on either of their group members. It is a very effective way for the whole group to learn more about each other as well as providing them with a public speaking challenge. We kicked-off 3-way-chats at 1900 and I was very pleased that everyone had taken the task seriously and had learnt enough about each other to be able to talk for the 3 minutes. Judging by the level of laughter and interaction the activity was a big success.Afterwards Navigator Caitlin briefed the youth crew on their duties for the overnight anchor watches.Yours AyeCaptain MikeBLUE WATCH WAKEY WAKEY SONG – SUN 01 SEP(To the tune of ‘I’m a little teapot’)I’m a little sail boatOut and aboutHere is teak deckHere is my bowWhen I see the sun upHear me Shout!I need handsSo let’s get out. “