Challenger 2 – St Albans Sea Cadets

After our crew member ( Honor) woke up from their lovely longggg sleep whilst we were waiting for her, we finally got onto the coach after like a 2 hour wait for the coach to make its way to us ( long enough for Honor to order a deliveroo mc Donald’s!! which I didn’t even know was possible) We arrived at Portsmouth it was raining and quite cold as we carried our bags on a short walk to the boat. We were then split into groups for each boat and were taken to our rooms and unpacked our things into our boxes. Then we met the: skipper, 1^st mate and our watch leaders. The watch where called starboard (right) port (left) then we planned our trip for the Tuesday and all the crew was happy to help us with that. We also not able to sail that day because of the weather

In our free time Millie and Ay was doing some absolutely AMAZING SINGING! (Which the crew could hear from within the deck whilst they had great fun doing the washing up)

OMG we saw soooo many dolphins!!! Literally like 10 dolphins were like 1 metre away from us (right next to the boat and under the bow!!!). Although, to start with we woke up and had some cereal and toast (with one boy potting literally a quarter of our weeks supply of sugar in his bowl – how unhealthy!!) Next after washing we helped to rig the boat ready for our exciting waveyyy journey ahead. Preparing lunch was great fun as we sailing at a angle of 30 degrees and were cooking on the hob which was perpendicular to us ( a great challenge for those who can’t even cook at home)

Ben, Amy & Millie

We started our day at poole harbour rigging the boat after a 07:30 wakeup call. We had our bacon buttes for breakfast and left our mooring point at 08:30 to start our 80 mile journey across the busiest shipping lanes in the world. The weather was pleasant for the whole day with lots of sunbathing on the bow (front) of the boat which often had waves splash up on the bow making everyone scream we crossed the eastbound shipping lane at 14:20 when a cargo vessel altered course for us what is very unusual to happen. We have anchored at Alderney harbour for the night and are next to challenger 3.

From Ben and Ed

We started a beautiful sunny day in Alderney. In the morning we were given shore leave for two hours, so we got a water taxi from the boat ashore, the guy who drove us in the water taxi was Australian, his jokes where really weird but he splashed Amanda and Charlie which made every one laugh. When we got there we explored the island for a bit, but then everyone from the other boat decided to go for a swim in the sea, they all bought swimming costumes but our boat didn’t so with our clothes on we all got in anyway and got very wet. After 2 hours on shore we then got the water taxi back and started to set sail for a long day of 12 hours sail. As soon as we got back on the boat we did the pilotage which took us a few hours. Once the pilotage was finished we then split into watches port watch began the night and starboard watch were off, however the entire crew ended up staying up on deck spending most of our time in the snake pit. We all took turns in helming while everyone else was dancing in the snake pit and of course ‘wiggling’. As we came closer to the quay we realised we were too early so had to wait until past 1 am which of course meant stranger dancing from us. following on from this we then began to bring the main sails down and out sail ties around the main sail. Finally we reversed in next to the other challenger to finally sleep at around about 1:30 am which is exactly the time we had planned to arrive on our pilotage. So overall it was a very successful day but it was good fun anyway.

Honor, Amanda, Mia

We started off the day at 7:30 trying to cook pancakes which did in fact get better over time. Then we set up the yankee and the staysail before proceeding the channel island of Alderney, we took it in turns to get a boat taxi to the island from our boat. Most of us headed to the beach straight away as it was a very warm day. We hadn’t all intended in going in the water but that seemed to be the outcome. We also stocked up on snacks and drinks from the local waitrose. As we all had gotten rather soaked in the sea, we headed to the showers before heading back to the boat. Then a delicious lunch of pesto pasta and toppings while looking out onto the island of Alderney. After we had departed from the dock, we put our mainsail up however there was very little wind. We tied some knots, did some leadership training. We then went into the watch system for the overnight sail back to Yarmouth. It was a very nice night with shooting stars and fireworks in the distance while of course looking for lobster pots, and the off watch were resting. We got there at 1 in the morning, moored up to the wall and got some well earned rest.

Fin

By Hannah and Rupert