Newcastle Day Sail
Ahoy there,Sail Master Evan woke everyone at 0630 and got them up on deck for a quick early morning activity prior to breakfast. The day’s weather started as grey and cold.We held the ceremony of Colours, during which we raise our Australian National Flag at the bow and the Australian White Ensign at the stern, at 0800, which was then followed by our Morning Brief. The Staffies weighed anchor at 0830 and motored into Newcastle Harbour and berthed at the Thales Fitzroy Street Wharf at Carrington to pick up our Community Day Sailors, who were organised through Leapfrog Disability Services. We had embarked all our guests by 1115 and departed the wharf for sea. Once we had cleared the harbour entrance we set some fore-and-aft sails and shut down the engines.Initially we sailed in a North Westerly direction towards Stockton Beach, then we tacked and reversed course. Once we were windward of the entrance to Newcastle Harbour we set the Topsail and Course square sails and furled the fore-and-afts and ran downwind into the harbour. As we did so the clouds started clearing and we had sunshine for the remainder of the trip. We clewed up the squares once we had passed Dyke Point, berthing back at the Fitzroy Street Wharf at 1500.Once we had farewelled our guests we sent the Youthies ashore with their Watch Leaders for a leg-stretch and to do their end of voyage talks in some of the nearby cafes. On their return we held the final edition of Rope Races and then the Youthies layed aloft to Harbour Furl the Square sails, making them look ship-shape for our ceremonial end-of-voyage arrival at Queens Wharf tomorrow morning.On returning onboard the crew had a fantastic pizza dinner served-up by Marcus and then Cheyenne and Ellie recited excellent poem Cheyenne wrote, we watched an amazing slide show about the voyage, compiled by Aroha and Tianne sang us a song she wrote about her experience on the voyage. It was then time for the crew to write letters to themselves about the voyage, which the Young Endeavour Youth Scheme retain and then post to the authors six months later. The final thing the crew did before hitting their racks for a very well earned rest, was to create their individual watch photo pages, which are retained onboard as permanent records of each voyage.The Ship will remain alongside in Newcastle overnight. Yours aye,Captain Mike
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Thank you Tarvi, Kaeden and Matt for your narrative of today's events. Intentions are to remain at anchor in Hunters Bay, just off HMAS Penguin, home of the RAN Diving School, a place close to my heart, having spent many a day there under training as a young Officer! The plan is to weigh anchor and proceed to HMAS Waterhen, in Waverton, to pick up our Community Day Sailors from the Windgap Foundation and take them for a sail around the harbour for 3 hours. The Youth Crew will help us host our visitors and give them an experience of Young Endeavour. We will drop them back to Waverton and then proceed to anchor in the harbour where we will have a good view of the Bridge and the Opera House for the Youth Crew's last night onboard. Until tomorrow. Yours Aye, Captain Mike