CLIENT: Gold Youth Voyage
VOYAGE NUMBER: 20220703
FROM: Townsville to Cairns
DATE: 6 July 2022
POSITION: En route to Dunk Is
REPORT BY: White Watch
Day 4. First qualifying day. We woke up to a radiant sunrise in the Hinchinbrook Channel after days of torrential rain. It brought smiles on deck and helped with our motivation to set sail again. To start our day, we had another knot-tying competition for the ‘Clove-hitch Knot’ and a Backstay competition. Unfortunately, our winning streak came to an end with our knot-tying as Blue and Red Watch had overcome us.
Knowing that we had come from a loss, we knew we had to redeem ourselves through the Backstay Comp. Two watches of 5 had to race to put on and off 2 backstays, first starting with White and Red Watch. To give us a head start to victory, we secured the first round despite some mishaps by a few of our members. In the second round, against Blue Watch, an easy win for the round and the competition, we had to humble others with our impressive backstay ‘skills’.
After the two competitions, we decided to set sail North, heading towards Hudson Island. We were sheltered by the scenic mountains which fortuned us with zero wind, giving us a calm and smooth journey for continuous hours. We arrived at Hudson Island at 3pm and stopped off for a quick swim and snorkel. During this time, we encountered a Blue Lagoon Stingray hiding from us as we clearly were scarier to it than we were of him/her.
As we finish up with snorkelling, we as a team decided to raise the sails and continue to head to Dunk Island. Being our first night sail, we were all eager and curious to what this experience would feel like. In the end, it was amazing and being amongst the stars and the vivacious sunset had everyone pleased with the day and excited for the next.