Brisbane to Gladstone
24 April 2025
Day 9
Ahoy there Matey,
As Command Day drew to a close, the Young Endeavour was absolutely flying towards the finish, speeding along at speeds as high as 10 knots, thanks to the expert handling of the squares and tween mast staysails by our elected command team.
Well assisted by the fair winds, we made great headway towards our handover destination, the beautiful Great Keppel Island. In order to meet our command brief, however, we made a short detour south as were well ahead of schedule and the staffies weren't ready to come back from holiday yet.
At 1005, we reluctantly handed back Tomo's Captain's Hat and Telescope of Challenge to the staffies. They quickly made their re-found authority felt by making us haul in EVERY sail on the ship!!! They then won back the crews' favour by sending us all to bed until Kingy was ready to feed us all a wonderful lunch of lamb backstrap or chicken parmi.
While the youthies recovered from the fatigue brought on by a challenging Command Day, the staffies set to putting up the fabled rope swing. For the short time the tide was favourable all the youthies could be seen jumping from the bowsprit, diving into the beautiful water, and unsuccessfully trying to emulate our resident circus member Jimmy's flips.
After that, it was time for ROPE RACES! But with a twist. This time it was the staffies who were scrambling all over the ship, hunting for various items such as muesli bars, SAOs, guitairs and our hero, Training Dummy Oscar.
After the afternoon's activities, we settled down with a debrief for our Command Day tasks. Many valuable takeaways were reflected on, and the result from this experience was overwhelmingly positive.
We then had a beautiful dinner by Kingy, after which we got stuck into making the ship absolutely spick and span in preparation for ANZAC Day tomorrow. This will be an amazing experience and a valuable opportunity to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our country.
Signing off for tonight,
Finn, Jimmy and John