Day Seven – Chillin with the whales at Byron

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening and good night,
Another great night at sea saw lots of activity as you would expect. Overnight, watch leaders facilitated a choice little activity, we call the ‘Bearex’, which is a teamwork and communications focussed activity, designed to bring everyone together to achieve something that they have not yet done onboard. For example set the main gaff topsail or the storm jib. Each member of the watch must participate in the planning and execution of this activity to be successful – there’s no passengers here. They were successful by the way.
Wakey wakey was announced at 0700 as usual and then breakfast got the day off to a great start. Morning brief was another creative production with Salty demonstrating the origin of the dog watches and why they are split. Very knowledgeable, that guy! Or full of it?? Either way he’s very entertaining. Kyle gave a wee history lesson on early European visitors to Cape Byron area and Nanna Diesel made another appearance, but the less said about that the better. I made an announcement which was met with smiles and cheer; the fact that they have successfully progressed onto ‘climbing stage 2’, which means they have been deemed competent and safe, to lay aloft without their watch leaders. Which means they may climb (with a buddy) either the foremast or the main mast, with watch leader supervising from the deck. This is not a light call to make, but with 6 days of climbing already under their belts, their watch leaders have been keeping a close eye on all of them and they have given me their endorsement. Well done.
Then without much of a breeze (we’d simply been motor sailing under main staysail only), youthies set all fore and aft sail in preparation for Demonstrational Tacks. Demo tacks is an opportunity for everyone to come to the bridge and see what happens from the command and control perspective. A couple from each watch at a time are talked through tacking the ship, then it is practically demonstrated with commentary. Command day approaches folks, so we need to set these young folk up for success. Whales were breaching and blowing, and dolphins frolicking throughout this activity which, with Cape Byron as a backdrop, was pretty awesome (for the purists, we had only 5-6 knots of wind and a boat speed of 1-2 knots and still managed to successfully tack 4 times without use of engines – This crew is good!).
Once all youth crew members had been through the demo from the bridge, sail was handed in and lunch served. During lunch Danny and myself took the opportunity to put each watch through their paces to ensure their sail handling is up to scratch. Again, setting them up for command day we assess their competence and safety standards whilst setting and furling various sails. And with pleasure I did announce to each watch that they were indeed competent and safe and had all passed the Captain’s setting and furling assessment. There was much rejoicing. We headed into Byron Bay and dropped the anchor.
I mentioned at the beginning that we had two navy members onboard conducting their suitability assessment voyage as they think they may want to join us onboard as staff… well, we need to assess their suitability for a posting and hence we therefore need to assess their ability to dress up – as dogs for example (choice of dress, make up and performance). We also need to assess their ability to plan, brief and execute an activity to assess their management and leadership skills. Therefore, this afternoon Harry and Lauren ran a lovely little mini Olympics onboard with events like: fender throw, egg and spoon relay, orange under the chin relay, some other thing with pegs and not sure what the other thing was either (hugging?). But there was laughter and high fiving and enjoyment seemed to be happening, so I guess we’ll give them a tick for that. Well done you two.
Well after all that Olympic level competition, everyone needed to cool off, so Taff opened up the pool and the people sloshed around a bit. And I can happily say that everyone made it back onboard. Phew! I was very nervous when Taff jumped in because we all know that sharks love rangas, cos they are so tasty. Fact.
Dinner was yum. I had the Atlantic Salmon with herb butter and some veg, followed by golden syrup dumplings and icecream and fruit salad. Then I went back for some more fruit salad… and ice cream. Full disclosure people. Following this feast, a number of our salty sailors deemed it necessary to go for a climb. And why not? (I had a lie down).
Meanwhile, behind the scenes, the projector and screen was set up, the pop corn was popped and once darkness had set in, a classic old film was shown at the famed ‘Carpe diem cinema under the stars’. A classic doco about tallship phosphate trading around Cape Horn during the ‘storm of the century’ in the olden days. Imagine watching this on a gently rolling tallship, under the stars with popcorn. Magical! Again, we threw that in for free. Well, we may have actually charged them for the pop corn 😉
Phew, what a day! But it’s not over just yet… when the movie finished we packed away the screen and projector, donned harnesses and weighed anchor. We need to keep pushing north as there’s no wind and besides we have a plan for another cheeky anchorage tomorrow. Guess where?
Until then.
Yours Aye,
Captain Adam
Quote of the day:
“Be who you are and say what you feel, cos those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” – Dr Seuss.

Shout outs:
Hey Mum, Sharnee, Dad, Frank and Craigsy– I hope you’re all doing well and enjoying the warm Brissie weather. Missing you all and I can’t wait to see you Monday, hear what’s been happening and tell you all my sea stories. Mum- I hope all of your assignments are done and you’re enjoying a nice relax. Sharn – I saw a pod of dolphins today you would’ve just loved, will show you the piccies soon. Dad – hope the weather has cleared up for you and you’re not getting too wet. And Craigsy, doing lots of climbing that you would be amazing at, can’t wait to see you, miss you tonnes. Love you all. Stay safe and see you in 4 more sleeps xoxo SAM

Gday, Gday Kelly Gang, how are we all? Don’t answer that, I can’t hear you Mum. Having an awesome time aboard the YE and making some awesome friends. Today we reached stage two of climbing so we can now climb aloft by ourselves on the foremast and mainmast. Went for a swim off the port side of the ship today at Byron Bay and even saw a drone! Hope everyone’s good and having a fine morning/day/evening! Love you all, Luke

Shout out to all my family and friends back home. If your reading Angus we are all missing you and I wish you luck for the future. It’s a shame you had to leave so early in the voyage but we are all here for you. Nick

Hello Mum, Dad, Victoria, Rachel and Susie. I’m having a great time. While sailing we have seen so many dolphins and today we saw a few whales. We arrived in Byron Bay today and went for a swim. We also climbed the foremast to watch the sunset. HAPPY BIRTHDAY Susie! Hope you had a great day. Shout out to Angus. We’re missing you here mate. Hope we can get back in touch soon. Listen to the doctor and you’ll be up and running soon. Wish you could have joined us for a few backflips off the railing today. Ben

Hey there family I hope life is great wherever you all are, Miss the touch a lot, but don’t worry Jacko will be back in the soup soon enough! Went for a swim today and caught a breezy sail with some Whales up to Byron Bay. Peace and Love- Jackson