Captain's Log
13 January 2014

Day 5 – Deal Island to Sea

Ahoy there Shipmates,Overnight the Ship remained at anchor in East Cove at Deal Island with the youth crew keeping anchor watches through the night to ensure the Ship remained safe within our anchor swinging circle and that machinery such as fridges and generator were running correctly.At morning brief we heard from Salty, who explained the reason we ‘split the dogs’ referring to the two two-hour watches between 1600 and 2000, instead of having one four hour watch. After a ‘Snappy’ Happy Half-Hour we transferred the crew ashore via the RHIB for a 2 hour round-trip walk to the Deal Is lighthouse. While the crew was away Sumo, the engineer, paid a social call on the island care-takers and invited them out for a tour of Young Endeavour.The crew had all returned onboard by 1130 and another delicious lunch from Chef Aaron was enjoyed by all. The crew were given some down-time after their busy morning until 1430 when the ‘big pool’ was opened and the Youthies got to use the Rope Swing for the first time. The pool was closed at 1500 and then, in preparation for sailing, the crew laid aloft to cast loose gaskets from the Topgallant, Topsail and Mainsail.We weighed anchor at 1600, set the Fore Staysail and sailed away from anchor and once in Murray Passage we set the Topsail and Topgallant and cleared the Kent Island Group to sea. At 1700 we took the Ship to Tacking Stations and conducted Rotational Tacks which is where the Watches move through the other Watches’ Tacking Stations so that they can see what the other Watches do when the Ship Tacks.The intention overnight is to continue our transit towards Flinders Island, in the light SE breeze, where we will anchor tomorrow morning and put the crew ashore for mid-voyage chats.Until tomorrow.Yours AyeCaptain Mike        “ 

Latitude/Longitude:

39° 35' South / 147° 18' East

Conditions:

Weather: fine, Wind: 090 / 8 knots, Swell: nil, Temp: 18 deg. C