CLIENT: Townsville Grammar School
VOYAGE NUMBER: 20210728
FROM: Townsville to Townsville
DATE: 29 July 2021
POSITION: Orpheus Is
REPORT BY: White Watch
After a rocky night in Horseshoe bay, white watch group started the day off bright and early with a 0400am anchor watch shift. After taking some bearings and statistics of the depth of the ocean etc, we were called to be the first watch to polish the brass. Time seemed to fly and soon the sun had risen. Charlie a member of our group had nominated himself to wake everyone up using the bugle. Fortunately it had woke everyone up however his playing wasn’t as successful. Cath our cook, surprised us with a cold breakfast of various cereals, juices and porridge. This gave all groups: red, blue and white lots of energy for the day ahead.
Considering this was our first day, our watch leader Roger went through all the basic techniques for sailing. After many unsuccessful attempts, we finally succeeded in tying a reef knot. As a reward for our successes Cath surprised us with a scrumptious hot breakfast as it was only 0800am. We had the choice of eggs, baked beans and toast.
All groups assembled together and raised the anchor for a long day trip to Orpheus Island. Although it was a beautiful day for cruising the lack of wind meant we had to rely on engine power. Around an hour before, we arrived at Orpheus Island, the wind at picked up and we were able to sail the rest of the way. We arrived here at around 1400pm spending the afternoon snorkelling around the reef, sunbaking, kicking the footy and ended it with a quick game of touch.
After a while in the sun, we got back onto the ship, where we rinsed ourselves down and quickly secured the sails for our short trip to our anchor point. On the way here a couple of people from group blue were watching the port side of the ship and had spotted a mother humpback whale and its calf. We switched course to get a closer look at the wonders of nature and a few of our very own watch members were fortunate enough to get within 15 metres utilising the net at the front.
Once we had arrived at our anchor point, all watch groups had a competition on who could tie knots the fastest. Unfortunately white watch did not get the win as red finished in under one minute and ten seconds. After some free time, Cath had called us for dinner which was a teriyaki chicken stir fry. We all ate on top of the deck with a beautiful view of a sunset and had sticky date pudding for desert. We all decided to call the night off early to get some quality rest time for tomorrows adventure. Stay tuned for what’s in store for tomorrow.