CLIENT: Youth Voyage
VOYAGE NUMBER: 20251130
FROM: Manly To: Sydney
POSITION: Currigee
DATE: 1 December 2025
REPORT: Red Watch
After our first shift, we woke up following another rather warm night in the hull, although we did sleep a little better than the first night. The Big Sandhills were radiating with the morning sunlight as we started our cold breakfast and prepared ourselves for war (two knot tying competitions and a backstays competition). After a nail-biting first knot competition, we came out victorious – winning both the round turn and two half hitches and the reef knot competitions. While basking in our glory, we enjoyed our hot breakfast of toast, spaghetti and hashbrowns, and discussed our strategy for the backstay competition.
After a quick cleaning break, we started our backstay round robin, of which, guess who won (hint, hint – it was the authors). We were finally ready to hoist the sails and make our way towards Peel Island (with the hopes of swimming off the boat) so it was all hands-on deck. While hoisting the sails, some of us saw turtles, jumping fish and dolphins, which excited us all.
Setting off for Peel Island, we were on first watch – and hoped we would make good time. Unfortunately, we had a few delays, and so our hopes of a swim didn’t eventuate as we needed to catch the tide down the channel towards Southport. Instead, we passed our time off watch playing cards and riddles and enjoying our beautiful surroundings. Dinner was a fabulous beef stew which was followed by berry cheesecake, which we quickly downed before starting our evening watch from 1800-2000hrs.
This watch entailed us ensuring that all channel markers, boats and other water-dwelling obstacles were conveyed back to the skipper (which may have been an improvement on previous watches). From here, we made our way back up to Currigee where we made anchor for the night. We finished the night by playing more cards and writing this report, before we head to bed as we are on the early morning shift from 0400-0800hrs. We hope your nights are cooler than ours! Sarah, Ben, Sohan, Luke, Javier and Belle