YTH 1810 – Toru Ra

Ahoy from the good ship R Tucker Thompson. Once again another successful day with smiles and laughter all around. Reflecting on last night’s activities we are happy to say that we all had an amazing night on shore. We started off making our bonfire while all the trainees went to go find some sticks to cook their dinner with, after the fire was flaming sausages, apples and marshmallows were cooked and devoured by everyone “DELICIOUS”. After we let our stomachs settle down everyone participated in playing spot light, Maxwell and Hemana were the champions and then we all sat down, told story’s and sang songs around the fire.

This morning was a 0730 morning wake up, all hands on deck and off for their refreshing morning swim in the ocean, Hunter was the first one in the water and jumped in multiple times showing off his “Mega bombs”. Shortly after we all went into our morning duties and had a lovely breakfast cooked by Captain Terry. Once dishes were done and dusted we did some class work learning about buoys and beacons, rules of the road at sea, and navigation- during this time Katarina, Minaia and Brooklyn were plotting our position on the chart and giving courses to Zion, Jaeshana and Jemiro who were steering the ship towards the island of Waewaetorea.

Upon arrival to our destination Zalina, Lyndon, and ruby were in command of lowering the sails and then we decided to swim through the taniwha caves (a 50 metre long, pitch black cave full of water) and go snorkeling at the other end around a small reef. As we went through and got to the reef the faces on the trainees’ faces we saying “let’s do it again!!”. After a short snorkel around the reef we headed back to the ship got all warmed up with hot chocolates, set sails and made our way to our night anchorage at Oke Bay

On arrival we lowered the dinghy and everyone went ashore and went for a short walk over the hill to a sunnier and paradise looking beach. Right now we are doing our 30 minutes of silence where our trainees are reflecting on where they are, who they are, and what they want to get out of this experience.

We are all having fun, very happy, learning heaps and are looking forward for tomorrow activitys

Po marie