Tall Ship Adventures - 14. TSA Chapter 14

Jordan was making up a soft drink punch for us when we arrived, and he had a selection of cheeses, cracker biscuits and dips laid out on the dining table. “Hello, can we come onboard?” we heard Mum call out, “Yes, Mrs and Mr Hynes, come on up,” Jordan called out from the door of the saloon, which he had left open. “Oh my, look how smart our two boys look,” Dad commented.

“Thank you for the invitation, Jordan, this is a surprise,” Mum said to my good friend, “My pleasure, now let’s relax and enjoy the comfort and surroundings before we go ashore for dinner,” Jordan said, as he served the non-alcoholic drinks to everyone and we sat down. After a bit of social chatter, and also Alistair telling Mum and Dad about our day of sailing, there was a short pause in the conversation.

“I understand that you are having this yacht shipped back to Western Australia, do you have a place in mind to have it based?” Dad asked Jordan. “Yes sir, that was the original plan, but when the yacht club supplied me with a great young crew, who have accepted an offer to remain permanent crew with me, I decided to make the two-week journey of us sailing her to our new home base of Port Denison,” Jordan announced.

“Oh, that is nice, why Dongara, and not somewhere closer to where you live?” Mum asked. “I guess that it has something to do with what happened to the previous yacht, am I right?” Dad commented. “Yes sir, spot on there, I want the yacht to be somewhere close to people that I know and trust, and not in a very remote location for my crew who will be living onboard, when not attending University or college, plus we will be centrally located to a very scenic location just a bit off the coast,” Jordan replied.

“They are an awesome crew, Mum and Dad. Carter is a year older than Jordan and is studying marine science, and his sister Beatrice is two years younger and is studying hospitality management at college, they have been sailing crew at the yacht club for some time now,” Alistair announced to our parents. “I have been asked to join them for this trip across the ditch and the Southern and Indian Oceans, I am hoping that you will say yes, as I think it will help me to gain a lot more sailing experience,” I said to our parents.

“Let us discuss it some more, and we will decide tomorrow on what will happen,” Dad responded. After a tour of the yacht, we headed over to the yacht club for dinner, where several club members were dining tonight, and our parents seemed to have a great time, meeting all the new people, and getting to know more about what it is like sailing in open waters in sailing yachts.

After saying goodnight to Jordan, our family returned to our holiday accommodation, and before heading to bed, Mum and Dad announced that they agreed to let me sail with Jordan and the crew home, but I had to contact them at every port that we call into on the way, which I let them know would only be Geelong, Albany and Fremantle, but we may go to Adelaide and Esperance as well.

With just one day remaining, before Mum, Dad and Alistair fly back to Western Australia, after letting Jordan know what my folks had decided, we agreed to meet later in the afternoon, so I could spend some time with my family before they fly out later that evening. I did head over to the yacht at 1500 hours, it was with all of my luggage, as I would be spending the rest of my time in NZ with Jordan on the yacht, preparing for the trip home.

Jordan agreed to my suggestion that we include Adelaide and Esperance as stopping points on the way home, so with five stops over fourteen days, we would always have a plentiful supply of everything for the journey. We would be spending a week preparing for the journey before leaving Auckland, and the two crew would move onboard three days before departure but would spend a few hours each day over the next few days with us to discuss how everything was going to happen during the trip.

Although Jordan also has Coxswain qualifications, he decided that it would be best if Carter was the skipper for this journey, and he would take up Skipper’s cabin portside aft, while Beatrice would have the other officer's cabin portside midships, and I had been allocated the starboard aft guest cabin, and Jordan would remain in the owner's cabin on the main deck starboard side.

Jordan, Carter and I would share the helm duties, with six-hour shifts each, so we had a different shift each day, Beatrice would do all of the cooking for us, and we would all share in the cleaning duties, which everyone was happy to do. Between Jordan and Carter, they worked out the time frame between each location, with Auckland to Geelong, and Victoria, taking us about five and a half days to complete the Tasman Sea crossing.

After a resupply and a short rest, we would set off to our next destination Port Lincoln, South Australia, which will take us two days to complete. Our next stop will be Esperance, Western Australia, and this will take us along the Great Australian Bight and will take two and a half days.

Jordan insisted that we take 24 hours off to rest and relax at each port of call, and this also gave the crew the chance to explore the region. It would take us just under a day to reach our next destination of Albany, and after another day of rest, we would head around the Cape and up the West Coast to Fremantle, which would take just over a day to complete.

After that, it will take us just under a day to get up to Port Denison, mind you these estimates were all dependant on having good winds all the way, which is not always guaranteed. With the stops at each port, we worked out that it would take us about 18 days in total, but could take longer depending on the wind conditions.

Once the two crew members were onboard, we were in full preparation mode, and although the weather wasn’t being kind, we were almost ready to go, with a small delay to wait out some wild weather, that was on its way. On the day that we were due to leave, but delayed a few days due to the weather, a message came to us from the Yacht Club Commodore, asking Jordan and Carter to come and see him before leaving.

This unexpected summons had us a little worried, that maybe we would not be leaving for some reason, and Jordan suggested that we all go, just in case it was a customs or passport issue or something like that. “Ah, the whole crew came along, that is good,” the Commodore said when he saw us enter the club, after tramping through a summer storm that decided to dump a heap of rain onto us.

“As you requested sir, and we thought this may be a customs or passport problem, so we all came,” Carter said to the Commodore. “Goodness me no, there are no issues at all there. I have a special request that I wanted to bring to your attention… how would you like to have two paying guests, join you as far as Adelaide? They are willing to put in their share of the work as well as paying for their accommodation and provisions costs,” the Commodore announced to us.

“Well, that would be great to have the extra hands, especially for the first leg of the journey, which will be the toughest. Who are they, and when can we meet them?” Carter asked, and just as he said that two people came around the corner, from the restaurant side of the club, and I suddenly recognised who they were.

“What on earth are you two doing here, who is at home looking after everything?” Jordan asked as soon as he saw his older brother Tim and sister Angela, and he was wrapped in a family group hug. “Gramps and Dad are fine looking after the place while we are away, and they thought it was best to come along and keep an eye on our little bro,” Angela said to Jordan.

“Hello Zac, how are you mate, having a blast from what I hear,” Tim said to me, “Hey Tim and Angela, yeah it has been a real surprise with this new yacht and all,” I replied. “This is my crew, brother and sister team, Carter and Beatrice Hunt, meet my older brother Tim and older sister Angela,” Jordan said making the introductions.

“So have you done any sailing at all?” Carter asked the new arrivals, “Only a little bit with our bro here, on his first yacht, and it was great to be out and off the station for a while. We swapped dry and hot dusty land with plenty of flies for lots of salt water, sea air, hot sun and no flies, so it was great to have some relief from our daily lives on the cattle station,” Tim replied smiling, and I laughed at this response.

“Ok, we will keep the main helm duties the same, but with the extra crew, we can give the three of us, two lots of fifteen-minute breaks, every two hours during our six-hour shifts, that should reduce the stress levels a lot,” Carter announced, and Jordan agreed with this decision.

“Carter has more experience than me, so he will be the skipper for this voyage, and we are sharing the helm duties. We will be having 18 to 24-hour stops at each of the five ports that we call into on the way, so we can all rest and have a good look around,” Jordan explained to his siblings.

“That sounds sensible, what will you be getting us to do?” Tim replied, “Scrubbing the decks, hoisting the sails, and walking the plank if you misbehave,” Carter responded, and I chuckled at this response. “Well, he is the skipper, so it is his decision,” Jordan commented innocently with a big smile.

“I will be doing no such thing,” Angela protested, and Jordan and I laughed at her response. “Relax sister dear, since we are a crew-only trip this time, all we need to do is keep the yacht working smoothly”.