on the ship at the moment we do a couple of day sails each day roughly and then again, roughly we do about two voyages a month. the day sails are for the general public, to come on board for 3 hours, sail around, help setting sails, climb, steer and relax. its quite nice. the voyages are the sail training bit, which is the main purpose of the ship. so about 40 teenagers, 5 permanent crew (thats me!) and 8 volunteers (to sail the ship and be watchleaders) set sail for a week to teach the teenagers how to sail, here they learn lots i think, its fairly cool if your 15 and your climbing 30metres off the deck up the main mast, at sea. not much seems too hard after that!
the thing i found most interesting about the voyage was the way the kids interacted with each other, it was like being back in school, but this time im the old teacher! the 'cool guys' seemed to get together, as with the messers, and the cool girls and the retro girls, it was gas.
the first couple of days of the voyage most of the kids were sick, some were really seasick, just lying on the deck for a couple of days! inbetween sleeping, on the third day almost everyone just picked up and it was good. i thought the sailing was great before then, it was a pity they were so sick. we then we sailed around for the rest of the week, they had an afternoon on rottnest island which is where i went cycling, its beautiful there. during the week they do lots of activities, teamwork exercises, sailing, climbing, its good fun.
on the last night there was a show that they put on for everyone, where they could do whatever they wanted on stage, some of them were really funny.
