Last full day on the R Tucker Thompson,
It started like most days, with the sun pointing its head over the hill, the soft lighting, and the famous morning swim followed by a steaming hot shower. This photo illustrates perfectly what our mornings look like on deck.
Once we were clean, we made sure the ship was too. Tucker challenges were set for the trainees that hadn’t had the chance to do it last time: Zane, Patrick and Parehuia. Aylah conquered her fear of heights and made it to the cross trees! Those keen for a second climb were welcome to join them aloft. We also had a lesson about finances, we now know how are voyages are funded, how much it costs to run one youth voyage and what we can do to cut the costs down.
Lots of veggies needed peeling this morning, everyone that wasn’t climbing helped. Bethany and Laura were very helpful with the pizza preparation, bases with tomato puree, cheese, mushrooms, salami and onion. The both of them managed to make 12 pizzas! A pumpkin and bacon soup was also being prepared.
As soon as lunch was over we made our way out of our anchorage on Motuarohia, got all hands on deck for hoisting sails and headed West towards Black Rocks. We worked as a team, first getting the main sail up, followed by the foresail and the headsails. Plenty of time to practice our knots and learn new ones like monkey fists, prussick knot and fishermans knot…
Little did the trainees know that downstairs in the galley, an apple and pear crumble was being cooked and it came as a surprise, in a bowl with custard over it. We then tacked and as we passed Moturoa Island, we spotted dolphins! They spent a good 10mins with us, before we went our separate ways, they went east and we went round the corner to the Kent Passage. The mainsail and the foresail were dropped and Mac our anchor officer was there to operate it, while everyone was busy coiling the lines, and fastening the gaskets.
We are now appreciating playing games together, as the sun sets on our last evening on board.
