Day 9 – Command Day Part 1 – Port Stephens to Sea

Ahoy there, Our youth crew command team has been elected as follows: Captain Walky Sail Master Sean Navigator Tim Watch Officer’s James Jen Brenton Watch Leader’s Ash Avara Gabbi Chef’s Dale Buzz Sahra 0515 this mourning, before the sun had broken the horizon, the most eager crew woke to learn all about astronomical fixing. Using the sun, stars and moon to determine one’s position on our beautiful world. This was all so apparent to us when we proceeded on our sunrise climb up the endeavour’s foremast. We were blessed with the warmest of sunrises over Nelson Bay. We enjoyed our breakfast and proceeded into our morning brief. We took a minutes silence before raising our colours to remember the five Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan last week. Our brief ended on a higher note where Capitan Mike handed control of this brigantine to the youth crew and me for our 24hr command day. Mike presented me a Captains hat and the captain’s spyglass. Having already completed phase one of three yesterday, by setting and furling sails on our ship confidently we were now onto phase two. Phase two consists of many challenges for our young crew, however we are all working well together to get the job done. Our mission includes waypoints that we need to sail through, activities we need to complete and skills we are required to hone. We will complete these with smiles on our sun caught faces. Throughout the morning we managed to complete some of the tasks we are required to undertake whilst at anchor. We found our waypoints for our journey at the top of our main mast being protected by Dartanian the brave carrier duck. With this information Tim our fearless and also wise navigator could begin to plot our journey. We carried out a cleaning hour to have our vessel at inspection order for our ex sail master Rico’s scrutiny. We practiced several knots for Michelle’s judgement. We brought some colour to our ship’s teak deck by designing a mural of our voyage so far. A massive hammock was built on deck to hold our entire crew. Six of our members formed their own “possie” to assault Nelson Bay marina, by rowing a GPIB ashore. They gathered the locals and sung to them the Australian National anthem. One of our greatest achievements today was having every member climb aloft at once for a group photo. For some of us this was simple and for others it was a matter of facing your fears in order to complete the task. We were all so proud of one another. We were taken out through the channels of Port Stephens and handed command of the ship in open water. Now everything was up to us!! We attempted an alternative route contrary to Tim’s plan’s for we accidentally tacked port of our course! We proceeded to get a closer than ideal look at a local fishing boat, when captain Mike and Rico took control once more. After this exercise we realised that sailing was not as easy as Rico makes it look. Never the less we have control once more and will continue onto Waypoint two. We will be having a late night and we know that through the night we will be woken for tacking stations as we tack and wear our way across the ocean on our course to Newcastle. Life is an adventure and here on The Endeavour we are living that adventure. There is nowhere else that any of us would rather be right now. Congratulations to all those elected for command day positions. Yours aye, Captain Walky