Endeavour Sailing 19/2/25 Wednesday: Going into harbour
Today the day started with me waking up naturally for a change, just after 7 a.m. for what turned out to be a very full-on, very exciting day.
The morning was spent relaxing as we sailed up the Australian coast to Jervois Bay, which we arrived at around lunch time. The arrival into Jervois Bay was quite stressful for me as I really wanted to be up on deck when the sails were pulled up, but unfortunately, I was rostered onto galley duty. As such I was helping out in the galley at lunchtime, doing dishes and clearing tables while the rest of mainmast watch was on duty, up on the deck.
I was working hard in the galley along with Martin and Ely while trying to stay calm, I felt like a little kid as I really wanted to be on deck and I felt I was maybe missing out on all the fun. Everyone was outside poised to climbing into rigging while I was stuck working in the galley in the bottom of the ship.
But in my defence, climbing the rigging and working with the sails is really what I want to do on this voyage, and even though the non-stop sailing has been amazing I've only been-up the rigging to work three times. Finally, the last watch finished lunch and I headed upstairs like a rocket.
Then when I got to the hooks where all our harness and wet weather gear are stored in the 18th century deck, my harness was missing!
I couldn't believe it; the one time I was in a super hurry and my harness was not where it is supposed to be. As the other Martin and Ely from my watch headed upstairs onto deck, I frantically went through all the other hooks looking through the wet weather gear.
Eventually, after a couple of stressful minutes I discovered Rob’s harness was hidden under a raincoat. Rushing upstairs I first noticed that one watch was up in the rigging pulling in a sail, but not mainmast watch which was great news for me. I quickly found Rob who is 70, and has a similar build to me, as he was wearing my harness and we quickly swapped.
My harness must have fallen off its hook in the dark and someone accidently put it on the wrong hook.
It was lucky that my watch was on duty as we sailed into Jervois Bay.
After all my stress and worry the next 30 to 45 minutes were actually spent relaxing before the order was given to furl the mainmast topsail. I was really looking forward to this, as furl means pull up the sail and secure it to the horizontal yard, and the mainmast topsail is a mighty large sail.
Ten of us including a couple of people from another watch climbed up to the topsail yard, the middle horizontal yard on the middle mast, the tallest mast on the Endeavour.
I was balancing on the middle of the starboard (right) with a gasket line (rope which ties the sail to the yard) resting on the yard with me leaning on it, then physically pulling up the huge sail while balancing on a single rope with my feet, while leaning over the yard up about 60 feet in the air. This was so much fun!
Trying to get the sail tidy was tricky. The mainmast topsail is very heavy and there are other ropes attached to the sail, such as horizontal bunt lines which get in the way. The corner of the sail has a number of ropes attached and was quite tricky to get tidy and sorted and attached to the yard.
This experience is what I wanted and I loved doing this manual sail handing so much, just like a kid I guess.
Ely, Martin and I on watch while on anchor, so we have lights on for a change
Back on deck the final hour of our watch was spent lowering the anchor which I was not involved in. Lowering the anchor is a complex activity done by the professional crew.
Today we used the smaller half tonne anchor. The anchors on the Endeavour are attached by large ropes, not chains like on a modern ship, which makes things more challenging but very traditional.
Finally, the anchor was down and the Endeavour was at rest in the harbour.
From here things were so simpler and easy compared to the previous few days as the ship was not rocking around. As we are in habour our evening watch from 8 p.m. was , so to midnight only needed me from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m.
After dinner I charged my phone and Kindle in the dining area while playing Uno with another watch for an hour. Playing Uno with 10 to 12 people is a chaotic experience, but I did win one game which was rewarding.
I then went to sleep for an hour before heading up for my short one-hour duty on watch, having a good conversation with Mark our watch Topman telling stories about the building of the Endeavour.