Blog

My best day on the Endeavour, coming across another tall ship at sea, firing our canon at it, climbing the rigging to set the highest sail on the ship, pulling up all the sails on the mainmast in the rain, being in charge of pulling up the sail on the bowsprit out the front of the ship and watching a seaplane taking off in front of the Endeavour as we come into a harbour.

I came on deck and wrote in my diary while enjoying the view of Jervis Bay with the sun slowly rising in the distance, with no movement from a ship in habour, which seemed very strange after the last few days.

After breakfast Mainmast were on watch from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and this was one super full-on watch as the Endeavour left Jervis Bay.

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 arm, 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 of tallest mast on the ship.

Today I was woken at 3:30 a.m. with the rest of mainmast for what was a great watch. The first 30 minutes I was on lookout as we are adrift in the ocean with very little wind and calm swells. This weather is so very different than the wild four-meter swells and 30 knot southerlies, gusting 40 Knots from two days ago.

The sea is a lot calmer now, and this morning’s watch until 12:30 p.m. had no special events except for a cruise ship which went past us, which of course sailed closer to see us, which I enjoyed watching.

After lunch I climbed out on the bowsprit, at the front of the ship. It was very relaxing with the waves crashing below me with the whole ship as my view in front of me as I relaxed.

Again, I woke naturally at 7: 30 a.m. 3 ½ hours after going to sleep, after our late watch. The swell was one to two meters when I came off watch at 4 a.m. but the swell has risen to four meters as we are truly in the Bass Strait now, between Tasmania and the Australia mainland.

Mainmast was next on watch from 4 a.m. until till 8 a.m. As such I was woken 30 minutes earlier at 3:30 a.m., along with the rest of my watch. I quickly grabbed my harness and wet weather gear which are hanging on a hook in the 18th century deck

Let me start today by describing the different levels on the Endeavor. There are three main areas on the ship, the outside weather deck with all the masts and rigging, then going down inside the ship you will find two inside levels, first the traditional 18th century deck, and below this is the modern 20th century deck.

I woke naturally just before 6 a.m., I had just started to get ready for the day when the call was made to get everyone up. I was then just ahead of everyone which was nice.

The big exciting thing for us during the morning is reefing the main topsail. Or put simply pulling up the lower half of the massive middle sail on the mainmast (middle mast of the ship). This is done by pulling up sections of the sail canvas and attaching them to the horizontal yard using ropes called gasket lines. Doing this makes the sail smaller and is used during rough weather, and tomorrow when we head out to sea the weather forecast is expected to be very rough.

Today the excitement starts; I’m back on the Endeavour sailing ship as crew for 12 whole days!

Today I have pre-booked planned activates from before I flew into Hobart. First up is the Hobart Convict Penitentiary, where convicts from Britain were imprisoned after being transported all the way from the UK. I knew convicts had been sent to Sydney, but I didn't realise that almost half of them went to Tasmania as well.

I was ready for my first day in Hobart. On the plane yesterday a number of people were all highly recommending I visit MONA; the Museum of Old and New Art, the number one tourist attraction in Hobart apparently - a large maze warren of different styles of art.

All was going well to start with, I was on the plane soon enough and we then taxied away from the terminal. But then suddenly nothing happened and we were waiting on the tarmac for about 15 minutes as I continued writing my diary. This was a much longer wait than expected, when suddenly the air crew told us that our plane had engineering issues and we had to go back to the gate.

Back in 2019 I was lucky enough to spend four days as voyage crew on the 1770’s Endeavor replica from the Australia Maritime Museum as it travelled around New Zealand as part of Tuia 250. Those four days were one of the highlights of my entire life, climbing rigging, hoisting sails, sleeping in hammocks where I was experiencing living history and I loved it and I’m doing it again!

It’s been a great seven days on Rakiura / Stewart Island and I strongly recommend the island as a place to holiday, wild kiwi’s walking around Oban town centre, amazing stars in this dark sky sanctuary and on the Great Walk lots of native birds singing, yummy local food - all in all a magical place.

We woke up early again as today is the last day of the tramp but once back at our house we need to pack up everything so we are at the ferry by 7.30am tomorrow morning, so everything has to be sorted today once we get back.

So begins the second day of the Rakiura – Stewart Island Great Walk. The kiwi experience that Robin, myself and some random guy called Russel had last night at 2.30am was the talk of the hut in the morning, quite a few jealous people I must say, we were very lucky – but Robin with his ranger hearing did give us a great advantage.

The Rakiura Stewart Island Great Walk begins and Robin and I had this magical 10 – 15 minutes watching this large Stewart Island kiwi slowly eating and moving around in front of us. We got within 2 meters of the kiwi. Then suddenly it reversed its direction and headed straight towards us and paused within ½ a meter of us. I could have reached out and touched it, and we both just softly breathed and took in this wonderful experience. Eventually the kiwi moved off into the bush were we could not follow.

Today we are heading out to Ulva Island, a small predator free island, one of the many smaller islands dotted around Stewart Island. We got up close and personal with robins, wekas, a kaka up close finally, baby saddlebacks which unlike the saddleback in Tiri don’t have the brown saddle. I also got a decent view of yellowhead