First, we all met at school at waited for ages (30 mins for one person), when we were ready, we all headed off to the school minibuses. After getting into the buses, we set off to Portsmouth (a two-hour journey), it was boring journey, and most people were half or fully asleep. Once we reached Portsmouth, we embarked on an epic journey to find lunch at Gunwharf quays, most went to burger king and others had a packed lunch. Then after 30 minutes we regrouped to get our bags and went down to the mysterious yet inviting boats. The walk to the boats was treacherous but worth wile as once we were there we were greeted by welcoming smiling faces as we boarded the boats in our assigned groups. We started off with a spectacular tour of the boats. We saw the musty brown sail locker, the spectacularly wonderful toilets, the gulley was fabulously spotless, and the sleeping quarters were smallish. We sailed the boat. They taught us how to put up and take down the sails and sailed (some people got to steer the boat) to the ‘Isle of white’. After docking    we tidied the boat, then four of us went down below deck to cook delicious fajitas. Finally got on with our evenings.

This morning, after being rudely awakened by a rather loud sea shanty, we clambered out of bed and got ourselves dressed for the day ahead. Charlie did an interesting job toasting the bagels – I ended up eating a half burnt, half raw bagel – and we ate our meals with a fake smile while we nibbled at our burnt bagels.

Afterwards, while The Washing Up Team scrubbed the plates, the others prepared the ship to set sail (Across the seven seas)! We also practised the safety procedure of when someone falls in the water – I’m looking at you Charlie… – and Ellie had a fun time getting lifted into the sky by the harness. Our victim (Sadly not Charlie), was a fender, and was dragged on board as it was too large for Ellie to carry!

Then, finally, we set sail! Also, we began hoisting up the main sail! Ela had to climb up the mast to help remove the cover. She didn’t fall, don’t worry. And then, we had to fold the cover and hoisted it down into the hatch. Once we were in deeper waters, we were able to release the main sail. We then proceeded to pull up the two smaller sails (Stay and the Yankee) and – according to Henry – we reached a brilliant speed of 10.8 kn per hour!!!

We had a wonderful lunch, which consisted of a chicken (or vegetarian) wrap WITH LETTUCE or for a certain someone without lettuce (Ahem, Ellie) but it was still very tasty.

While some people put down the two smaller sails, Matt sprinkled Ellie, Katherine and Kenzie with water! Dun Dun Dunnn! They were not happy.

Then we had to take down the big sail…which was a bit of a pain. Some of us had less work to do than others…. Ahem those who are vertically challenged. And some of us were almost dead at the end of this mission…Ahem those who are trees.

When we arrived at dock, we attached ourselves (not romantically or in person) with the other boat. We cleaned up the rest of the boat and made our way inside! Some of us made a delicious curry, while the others were lazy and did nothing.After dinner, a few people had showers (In the very fancy marina facilities) while the others lazed around. Then reconvened back in the boat for a deadly game of Mafia. Hopefully Charlie won’t peep again…

PS, Kenzie has been hysterically laughing all day…we can’t wait for tomorrow!!!

Here comes the Sun woke us up at 7 am as we had to leave Poole early to make sure we weren’t going against the strong tide. We prepared the boat and set sail in 45 minutes and as we were heading towards the open ocean, we enjoyed a breakfast of crumpets and cereal.

We travelled downwind and put up the main sail and the Yankee. We also did a little tacking to help the boat travel faster. After several hours we arrived at Portsmouth and got to sail past the Prince of Wales aircraft carrier as we put the main sail down. When we had moored, we all helped put the boat to rest which included re-arranging the sail locker and taking down the Yankee.

After a delicious meal of Thai green curry both the crew of Challengers 3 and 4 met to enjoy a quiz on what we learnt over the week which was prepared by one of the teachers. It was very fun and I think we all had a great time.

By Jemimah