CLIENT: Silver Duke of Ed
VOYAGE NUMBER: 20230925
FROM: Hervey Bay to Manly
DATE: 26 Sept 2023
POSITION: En route to the bar
REPORT: Red Watch
On Tuesday, everyone was woken up at 0630, with Red Watch having their first watch earlier in the morning from 0000 to 0400. This included completing the Blue Book using navigational devices such as compasses, and old-school maps. The Bosun for the day was Archer, and his mate was Finn.
The crew’s desired route was to travel from King Fischer Bay to stop at Deep Creek for a Shore Party, then proceed to sail during and after sunset to anchor at Inskip Point. Travelling at dark was requested to ensure optimum time usage for reaching our final destination on schedule.
Once members of the voyage had awoken, we all had a cold breakfast, and then participated in a rope tying contest using the reef knot; white came first, red came second, and white came last. We then proceeded to enjoy a secondary breakfast consisting of warm foods. Watches also worked as a team to win the backstay competition, which involved putting the backstay on and off in a time crunch. Red Watch won by a mile each time, resulting in us being the overall champions of backstaying.
All watches and crew members assisted in raising the anchor manually in the morning, by pumping water, turning the anchor wheel, flaying the chain in the anchor dock, washing the chain, and ordering directions for rotations. This process was enacted again in the afternoon when the ship was ready to depart Deep Creek.
Sails were raised and Red Watch enacted a couple of tacks. We wrote in the rest of our blue books, before then proceeding to pass out for a 20-minute nap. After our nap, we got called up to deck to lower the sails and anchor the ship.
When we arrived at Deep Creek, we had to take the dinghy out to the island, where we found ourselves knee-deep in sloppy mud. The skipper left us be at the shore, in which we took the initiative to take a long walk in the river, not realising that the tide had risen substantially, and the dinghy had zoomed in to collect us. A few of us had to push/pull it a few metres to get it to the part of the bay that hadn’t gone underwater yet. The skipper and Rhyce went for a short bush walk whilst the rest of us stayed on the sand, swatting away bugs and discovering all the mosquito bites that had gone unnoticed.
When we arrived back on deck, we had another rope tying competition for the figure-8 knot. That Sophia smashed in millisecond world record time. But red watch cut it close, only receiving second to white watch. We nominated a new Bosun and mate for tomorrow with the Bosun being Mikka and the mate being Alle. Then we had a muster meeting (all watches), to reflect upon our Practice stage of our adventurous journey, and how we could improve for the qualifying stage.
Red watch reefed the mainsail, before then continuing the ships journey using the engine. Red watch had dinner and dessert, due to our watch being from 1800 to 2000. During this time, we used the helm to steer the ship through the night. Though, before we could come up on deck for our late watch, we had to put on our PFD’s (Personal Floating Device) and emergency flashlight around our necks.
Tomorrow morning all watches are to wake up at 0500 to set sail early for us to cross the bar to eventually reach Moreton Island. Coincidently, the red watch’s first watch for the day also happens to occur during 0400 and 0800. We are planning to anchor at Tangalooma tomorrow, if we manage to stick to the schedule and plan. Sophia, Lisara, Archer, Finn, Mikka, Alle