Day 4 – Sea to Horseshoe Bay

Ahoy there Shipmates, The ship remained at sea overnight motor sailing along the QLD coat towards the Whitsunday Islands. All the watches further developed their watch-on-deck skills, including conducting engineering rounds, whilst further developing their climbing and sail work skills during their night watches. White Watch woke the crew at 0700 with a song they had written themselves. After breakfast Dougie held the Morning Brief which featured all the usual suspects. Jen told us where we were and how far we had gone overnight, Salty explained the nautical origin of the expression ‘son of a gun’ and after another of Nana Diesel’s ‘parade of shame’ of all the clothes the youthies had left lying around their cabins. While the crew progressed ‘happy hour’ the Ship anchored in Horseshoe Bay, Magnetic Island. Next the first edition of competitive, non-competitive, ‘Rope Races’ was conducted by Lindsey, the engineer. The subject was Ship’s Safety Equipment and one member of each watch was called up and asked to touch a piece of equipment. The first one to do so correctly won a point. Then Sandy gave a presentation on the nautical ‘Rule of the Road’ designed to teach the youthies what they needed to know on the subject for Command Day. After lunch we had a demonstration by Staffies of ‘3-Way Chats’, which is an ice-breaker we will run this evening after dinner at anchor. Youthies are split into groups of 3, one from each watch, and they have to learn basic facts about each other member of their group so that they can speak about them. The facts include name, where they live, number of siblings, where they work/study, any hobbies or pets, an embarrassing moment and lastly a charade depicting their favourite film/TV show or book. We started ferrying the crew ashore to the beach in Horseshoe Bay at 1400. Whilst ashore the crew had a chance to get some exercise, have a swim, relax over a coffee and also to prepare in their groups for 3-way chats. Dinner was a delicious teak deck BBQ cooked by Aaron, his willing assistants and myself. The food was quickly demolished by a ravenous Youth and Staff Crew. There was a very chilled out vibe afterwards with everyone enjoying the fine conversation and some tunes in the background. Soon enough however Dougie wrapped up the end of dinner and moved onto three way chats. I was impressed by the standard of the presentations and it was obvious the youth crew had put some effort into learning some things about each other. After a very enjoyable evening finding out so much about each other Jen the Nav explained how the anchor watches work and what their responsibilities are in looking after the safety of the Ship throughout the night. Before anchor watches started the musically talented in the group had a bit of a jam session with guitar, ukulele, flute and bongo drums, which was enjoyed by all the crew. Until tomorrow, yours, aye CAPT Mike