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Day 51 – Command Period Extended
Hi everyone,Welcome to day 52 of our voyage and the second day of the Crew’s Command Period. At the request of the Crew this period has now been extended to 72hrs so they must be enjoying themselves. Please find attached tonight’s Captains Log which has been well written by Greg from White Watch. Enjoy!Until tomorrow, take care.Yours AyeCaptain GavCaptains log 9th Feb 2015Ahoy family & friends who will may or may not soon be re-welcoming Crew of V01/15 back into life ashore.The first full day of Youthies takeover is drawing to a spectacularly firey close as the sun gets all set to dip once again below the horizon (at 1928 with bearing 253 degrees if my working is accurate), and the ship is still not only in one piece, but we are also enroute to arrive on time. It has been a great first 24 hours of Command period with everybody. The day began at 0700 with the pipe announcing that due to weather, morning brief was postponed until the afternoon, leaving everybody except the oncoming watch free to attempt to sleep in the muggy temperatures that we have unfortunately become re-accustomed to after a balmy 6 weeks in the fresh delights of the Southern Ocean (winter baby for life. #sorrynotsorry).  White watch had the 0800-1200 watch, and this watch saw us making good speed on an ENE course whilst spotting several vessels sailing past us. During this watch we gradually saw the rest of the crew rise and shine, with several taking advantage of the sunny conditions to attack our piles of dirty washing that has become the bane of every crew member on board (yet another reason cold is better that hot – less laundry. #sorrynotsorry).  With another watch over at 1145 we descended on the galley to load up on what will be our last week of classic top-notch YE food. Special mention needs to be made to Fiona, the master of the Youthie masterchefs, who despite feeling a bit under the weather this morning still managed to coordinate fellow masterchefs Rusty & Kieran and pump out enough food to feed this hungry crew of 36. We love and appreciate your efforts Fi!!  “Morning†Brief was postponed to 1330, where Captain Sam, Sailmaster Robyn, Naviguesser Julia and Watch Officer Michelle took over and ensured both Staffies & Youthies were informed of the days happenings. A notable change to the command period was its extension from 48 to 72 hours, giving the watches a chance to swap people around in essential roles.  As a challenge given to us by the staffies each watch was required to find out an interesting fact about 4 of the staffies – Blue watch was the winner of this challenge, with an entertaining anecdote about Taffies pet bird…Following happy hour, I decided to join the trend of deforestation that is occurring among the men on board this fine vessel – that’s right, the glorious red beard has been trimmed. A sad but inevitable day, but the canopy was stifling growth on the forest floor so it was necessary for the long-term health of the ecosystem. Unlike several of the other males, I did not go for the Nintendo-mario moustache or the attempted-handlebars, despite the temptation being at times quite high. I’m still undecided as to if it makes a difference in the cooling department but we’ll find out when we hit Rio!!  Following dinner, a thorough PT session is currently in action down at Midships. While the vessel motion restricts the exercises that can be safely done, it looks like the waves over the bow are cooling them off a bit…Currently it is 1905 and we are maintaining a NNE course up the coast of South America on our way to Rio where we will arrive (hopefully, for the sake of several Youthies flight itineraries) on February 14th. The cloud looks to be obscuring another amazing South Atlantic sunset, but spirits are still high onboard Young Endeavour despite the end to this journey of a lifetime being, quite literally, just over the horizon.Until tomorrow!Yours Aye,Greg (White watch – yeah we move around a bit…)P.S Greg would like to wish his sister Victoria a very happy 22nd birthday! Looking forward to seeing you when I get home!!P.P.S Enjoy the photos from the last few days, taken by Hannah!!Â
Latitude/Longitude:
Conditions:
Currently located 790 nm from Rio de Janeiro and still experiencing moderate NE winds with a 1m NE swell. Current temperature is 23 degrees. Â
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Hi Everyone, Welcome to Day 6 of our voyage. The strong northerly’s experienced yesterday moderated overnight and by the early hours of this morning we had entered Great Oyster Bay and were now motor sailing due to the light conditions. Just before sunrise we altered course to the east and transited through Schouten Passage which gave the morning watch an opportunity to view the western side of the Freycinet Peninsular and witness a spectacular sunrise. Once safely through the passage we altered course to the north, handed in sail, then proceeded directly into the famous Wineglass Bay where we came to anchor at 0830. Once at anchor we conducted the normal morning’s activities and have spent the rest of the day enjoying this beautiful part of Tasmania. That’s enough from me I will now handover to Liv and Mei who have done a wonderful job of writing tonight’s Log. Until tomorrow, take care. Captain Gav Ahoy there! This morning started off with a “funny” parody of “Let It Go” from “Frozen” featuring a memorable yet un-relatable line: “the vomit never bothered me anyway”, created by Red Watch. Thankfully, White Watch could sleep through this as they were on guts watch from 0000 to 0400, where they worked as a team to set the storm jib in a record time of 40 minutes! Other highlights of the night included learning about navigation, steering the helm by the wind for the first time and our famous midnight café featuring a lot of vegemite. Some very special guest dolphins swam around the ship and looked truly majestic as they glowed with bioluminescence. We anchored and woke up to the stunning view of The Hazards at Wineglass Bay, which we later hiked up and saw a spectacular view of Young Endeavour looking gorgeous in all its glory. But before this, we had mid voyage chats where we evaluated our goals and how we’ve progressed since the beginning of the voyage. We then played the inaugural bin ball championships created by Bucky at Wineglass stadium featuring a sand court. Unsurprisingly, White Watch won with a tight score of 3-2 in the finals. After the hike, which we were told was going to be around 20 minutes but ended up being more than an hour, some Youthies took the chance to have a quick swim before going back to the ship. Tonight’s dinner menu included lamb satay curry and grilled chicken, as well as a special addition of Hoppy’s Sundae Bar, which proved to be very popular. Most of us decided to have dinner on the deck and take advantage of the picturesque view of Wineglass Bay. As always, a big shoutout to our Head Chef Haydo and Masterchef assistants for keeping our bellies happy! After dinner, we had a self-reflection “Stop Start Continue” workshop in our watches where we wrote about certain aspects we want to work on to improve ourselves. Hopefully we will see that we have been able to make progress on our goals when we get to read them again in six months’ time. We believe in you, you got this! Currently, we’re waiting to start the anchor watches (our favourite) and preparing to set sail again tomorrow. Finally a shoutout to Mum, Dad and Ruben miss you guys so much. Remember I’m looking at the same moon and stars as you are, Love you - Liv Shoutout to Dad as I live out his dream of “enjoying good food on a navy ship”. Mei This is Liv and Mei signing off J
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This morning the youth crew of the STS Young Endeavour woke to the frightening sound of red watch singing a parody of Riptide by Vance Joy over the ships intercom. This was then followed by the message that blue watch, the watch that was on guts the night before, could have a well-deserved sleep in. While members from blue watch went back to sleep the rest of the crew made their way down to the galley to enjoy another one of Haydos fantastic meals. After everyone had had breakfast the morning brief was given at 0900 which involved informing the youthies of the day ahead and a very educational story by Matty on the origins of the nautical term “two six heave”. After the morning brief the crew went below decks for Chucky’s favourite part of the day: Happy Hour! (Also known as cleaning the ship hour). In the afternoon the three watches conducted rotational tacking stations. This involved the watches rotating through the positions that the other watches fill when we tack which helped the crew get a better idea on what happens when we tack. Captain Gav came up on deck to give us a crash course about sailing theory and the ships history. This was very interesting and gave the youth crew a helpful insight into why different sails are used depending on different wind conditions. Round 3 of the famous Rope races were then commenced at noon with a twist of the round being worth double points. This highly non-competitive competition ended with Blue and Red watch drawing making it a close race for the rest of the trip The biggest highlight of most people’s day was sailing through the straight between Tasman Island and Cape Pillar in the afternoon. We all gathered at the bow of the ship as we gazed upon the spectacular columnar basalt edged cliffs rose up on either side of the narrow passageway. We had to furl all the sails, which involved sending two youth crew members up the main mast in rough swells and high winds to gasket the sail. Engines where turned on for the first time that day so we could safely pass the straight. The effort was truly worth it as we passed the resident seal colony and schools of dolphins. One of the greatest things about the STS Young Endeavour is even though the ship may sway from side to side and youth crew struggle to walk straight without getting knocked into a wall; the ships Chef continues to work hard and impress us with meals made from a kitchen which is smaller than the size of most people’s laundry room. It continues to amaze me how he keeps this quality in these rocky conditions. Not enough praise can be given to the hard work this man puts in keeping everyone happy. Go Haydo!Hi mum and dad I’m still alive, somehow we are already halfway through. See you in six days. Jack. You probably won’t see this but love you to the moon and back mum and dad. Riley. Until next time… Youthies Jack & Riley
