Day 8 – Command Day

Hi Everyone, welcome to day 8 of our voyage and the much-anticipated Command Day. It has been an action-packed day with time spent ashore in the beautiful Patonga and then the handover to Captain Tilly and her loyal crew for Command Day. Already they have completed a number of their tasks and have successfully put the ship under sail and have now achieved getting us close to Sydney. That’s enough from me I will now handover to the crew to tell you about their day.

Until tomorrow, take care.
Captain Gav

Hi Everyone, welcome to day 8 of our voyage. After a long night of hourly anchor watches, a few chats and a night of rock-less rest, we started the morning with a quick game of evolution which somehow ended up with “evolving” into Taylor Swift, singing the Endeavor’s version of Shake it off. We were a delightful sound. With that, we went straight into chats for those with leadership positions with those Staffies whom they were replacing whilst the rest of us got ready for beautiful Patonga. We had a scorcher of 30 degrees, so the crew was very excited for the much-anticipated swim after being surrounded by water for so long.

At 0930 we were ferried over to the Patonga Jetty in the ship’s Rhib (Boat), I was super happy to be able to have a milkshake at the café after having limited milk over the past 8 day’s due to the limited amount the ship can carry. It was also great to be able to throw around the footy for the first time in over a week along with enjoying a refreshing swim, I for one felt a bit more like my normal self. Whilst over at Patonga, some of the crew and staffies went for a hike up to the beautiful Patonga lookout where they raved about the spectacular view, but I still think the water was the biggest hit! Even with getting dunked multiple times.

I was personally fascinated by the different types of seaweed at Patonga, and the jellyfish which we could see from the ship (types of jellyfish that I had only previously seen at Sea World) I’m not sure if that impressed anyone else but I sure loved seeing aquatic wildlife.

When we got back to the ship we held the Command Day handover and now into our biggest challenge yet, with our watches numbers decreasing due to filling leadership positions it will definitely be all hands on deck whilst sailing the ship. We have a list of activities to complete during our command day period and started well with getting the whole youth crew aloft. We hit two birds with the one stone by also casting loose the gaskets on the sails while we were up there which has saved us a lot of time. Since sailing from Broken Bay we have set and furled most sails and even successfully tacked the ship which was a major achievement for us all. We can now see the lights of Sydney and our spirits are high.

A big Shoutout needs to go to our chefs who have done a great job in feeding us tonight. We can’t wait to see everyone, but now Command Day calls, all hands to tacking stations! So proud of the crew as we’re still going strong and are on the home stretch now.

Thanks for Reading and Go Red Watch!
Cheers, Maddie.

To my family + Friends – I’m having a good time on the Young Endeavour, don’t worry about me too much . Love you lots see you soon! Gabby B