Belle – I was woken up around 6:30, so I had to get dressed and get ready to leave. I had to get from Chiswick to waterloo station. We first arrived at Waterloo station at about 8:00 AM, so we were really early. We waited in the car for about half an hour and then we went inside. I started walking around Waterloo and found Mr Fiore and Sophia who was in Pret. We waited for everyone to arrive, which took ages!

Nika – The last ones to arrive were Bailey & Tristan, so when they got there we waited a little longer then went to the platform. Our train was on platform 13, and it was going to Portsmouth! On the train I played games on my phone, because the train journey was quite long. Eventually we finally arrived in Portsmouth!

Sophia – After arriving in Portsmouth Harbour (it was quite a few stations between kings cross and Portsmouth Harbour) we had to carry all our heavy bags to the harbour where we left them by the ship. We then went to have some food in the harbour, we voted burgers. We quickly popped to the loo before getting onto the Tall Ships Cat.

Tristan – So then we went through some rules and how to stay safe on board. The rules we went through were how we weren’t allowed to jump on the Scramble net and how we used the toilets. We also got a grizzly warning that if we jumped into the water that we would get hyperthermia due to how cold the water was. After a few hours we left the harbour and started making our way to the Isle of Wight.

We were at Cows getting ready to head out to sail for the day. Before we set sail we had a lesson & recap on the things we’ve done. We went through the knots and how to set the sails. We learnt how to tie a Clover hitch and recapped on the Oxo knot. We learnt how to set the sails (Jyb sail). We also learnt how to do changing sides of the sails before set sail. We departure from Cows harbour.  We left the harbour faster than on day one yesterday (Monday).

We anchored in New Town Creek for lunch and we had Coraash pastry. We’ve been there for two hours not moving because of break (lunch). After we anchored we had a lesson on how to use a hand baring and compass also, we held the hand baring up to our eye and looked at what the compass said. We also talked about baring and talked about how all the directions have certain degrees angles.

We set sail after lunch and started heading to Yarmouth harbour, we seen the Isle of White & main land (England) in the journey. We started to use the sails and we used the less engine power on the way.  Arrived in Yarmouth harbour we parked faster than yesterday (Monday). We had a quick lesson before we had a little free time (wonder around the beach & castle and go to buy ice cream in the town).

Belle – We woke up in Yarmouth, the night sleep was much better than in Cowes. This was because of the ferry travel through Cowes keeping us up. I was woken by stomping on the stairs, which was nice! We then had breakfast, so I had marmite on my toast and some cornflakes. Our group then did the washing up, which took a while! We then went to brush our teeth in the harbour, and got ready to leave.

Sophia – Just before we left Yarmouth we went over a few knots we’d learnt yesterday, like the clovehitch. We then got our lifejackets on and pulled in the sheets (ropes) that attached us to the harbour. We then took in the defenders, and clovehitched them by the scramble net at the back of the boat. We then motored out of the harbour, and that’s when we put out the janoah and the mizzen sails.

Nika – We then began to tack, which is something we learnt yesterday. Tacking is what we have to do in the ‘no go zone’ when we are sailing into the wind. We were then sailing in the English channel towards the ‘needles’, we then actually sailed back the way we came but we were with the wind and waves so it helped us.

Tristan – So then we anchored for lunch and we had soup with bread and I enjoyed it quite a lot. So after lunch my group was washing the dishes and drying them. We sailed down Beauly River, we had to be very careful because it was very narrow and there were a lot of boats passing by. Once we got to the harbour we went on a walk through the forest and I found it super tiring. Then we had dinner which was pasta bolognaise.