Tall Ship Journey - 7. TSJ Chapter 7

“By the way, I have some awesome news for you, but I think I might wait until after this voyage before telling you the details,” Jordan whispered to me, as we sat down for our first evening debrief meeting, now that the participants had settled down in their bunks for the night. “Don’t you dare do that, or I will strangle you, while you are sleeping,” I responded, “There will be no threatening of fellow crew members while on this voyage, thank you very much, Mr Hynes,” the skipper said loudly.

“Oh shit! Thanks, a lot mate, for getting me into trouble,” I whispered to Jordan. “It is ok skipper, I was just withholding some news for my shipmate Zac here, regarding our plans for the med-year holidays,” Jordan informed the skipper and the rest of the permanent and voluntary crew. “Oh, well tell us all, I am sure we would be happy to hear this too,” the skipper asked Jordan.

“Well, it was a surprise for my mate Zac here. I recently received payment for losing my most recent yacht due to hijackers, as most of you probably know about, due to the huge media coverage, and after some discussions with my parents, I am using some of the proceeds, for us to spend two weeks sailing on two other tall ships. Namely, the STV Fair Jeanne, based in Ottawa, Ontario, and the STV Pacific Swift based in Victoria, BC, both in Canada, so we won't be available at all for any trips in the mid-year holidays," Jordan announced, which caught me totally by surprise, and I didn’t know what to say.

“Wow, that is awesome, congratulations, that would be a great trip,” Pete, one of the other team leaders said in response. “Yeah, it will be. I will also have my former yacht skipper – Carter and his younger brother – Jackson, who was my deckhand, joining us for this trip,” Jordan added. “Wow, that will be awesome, thanks, mate…” I eventually said in response to the news.

A bit later on, while sitting out on the deck enjoying the evening sea air together, Jordan turned to face me. “So, are you ok with us going to Canada, along with Carter and Jackson?” he asked me, and I thought about this for some time before answering. “Yes, I think it will be awesome, and it will be great to see the guys again, but wouldn’t it be better to invest your money in something else more permanent?” I asked.

“In a way, I am doing just that, investing in the future of my three good friends, doing something that we all enjoy doing, sailing on tall ships. That announcement I made earlier, about the two trips in Canada, is just the beginning of our Tall Ship Journey, you and I will also be spending Christmas holidays together sailing as well,” Jordan announced.

“Oh, ok, so what else have you lined up for us?” I asked suspiciously. “Well, straight after Christmas, we fly to the UK, where we will spend eight days onboard the SV Tenacious, as a volunteer crew, before we fly to Genoa, Italy. Once there we will have a week to look around before we take up jobs as deck crew onboard the luxury sailing yacht Athena,” Jordan announced to me.

“Luxury yacht? Jobs?” I asked shocked at this announcement, and Jordan just smiled and nodded his head to confirm this, before he revealed his iPad, which was already open to the information on this luxury sailing ship, and he handed it to me to read all the information. “Ninety metres long, 12 metres wide, nineteen crew, five guest cabins for ten guests, and three decks. Aluminium hull and superstructure, and fuel for 4,000 nautical miles. This is quite impressive,” I stated to my good friend.

“It is that. Check out the layout plans, it is quite impressive,” Jordan said to me, and I continued to look up the information on the iPad. “You arranged this, for us to be crew onboard this huge tall ship?” I asked after looking at all the information. “Yes, all four of us, have three-month employment contracts as deckhands with the ship. I suggest that we keep this all hush-hush about us going to work on her though. Let's get through this voyage first, and start to prepare for our mid-year trip to Canada, then we can start thinking about our after-Christmas job in the Med,” Jordan replied.

The rest of the voyage went smoothly, without any major problems, and as I predicted, the lads had an awesome time, as they prepared to disembark once we had returned to Rottnest, they thanked me for being an awesome watch leader, and also for introducing them to tall ship sailing. Returning home for the one day before a new school term, I informed Mum and Dad of Jordan’s plan for Carter, Jackson and me, to do more sailing on two tall ships in Canada, and both of my parents expressed concern about this with my final exams only being a few months away after that trip, but I managed to convince them that I would be able to handle it.

I also wanted to tell them about my first real job of being a crewman onboard a 90-metre sailing yacht in the Med, but I managed to hold my tongue and kept it secret as Jordan requested. Back at school, Bryce, Toby and Nate gang hugged me. “Hey, watch leader, ready for another week of school?” Bryce asked me, and I laughed. “Will you guys step away so I can breathe, or else I will have to make you walk the plank,” I replied, and all three of them stepped back releasing me from their group hug, and laughed out loud.

“Sorry, that can’t happen, no water around here,” Nate replied smiling, “Smart arse,” I responded, and we were all laughing now. “Ah look, it’s the four musketeers,” one of our classmates who isn't very popular said as he approached, “More like the four pirates,” Toby said quietly, “Arr me matey,” we all said in unison before laughing again at our private joke.

“What’s so funny meatheads, and what is with the pirate talk?” Henry, the class bully said to us, “Nothing that you would understand, shark bait, it’s way beyond your understanding,” Nate said to Henry, before starting to walk away, and Bryce, Toby and I followed. Later in the day, as the four of us sat down for lunch outside under a shady tree, “I like that nickname you gave Henry, I think it suits him,” Toby commented, and Bryce and I agreed with him, and we all agreed to use it as his nickname when he isn’t around.

“Hey, arseholes, what is this about you spreading rumours around the school, that my nickname is Shark Bait?” Henry said to us angrily, as we were organising our books in our lockers at the end of the day, as he came charging towards us. “Oh, watch out guys, a shark attack is about to happen,” Toby said as he slammed his locker shut, and backed away from it, and a little further away from Henry.

I wasn’t quite quick enough to react, and I soon found myself slammed against the lockers, but I was fast enough to duck under a fast-approaching closed fist of Henry’s, which went slamming into the locker near my ear, and made a very loud bang, followed by a yelp from Henry. Bryce and Toby closed their lockers grabbed me by my jacket, and dragged me out of danger of the school bully, and around the corner, into the other corridor.

“What is going on here, and what is all this noise about?’ we heard one of the teachers demand, “Nothing sir, I tripped and smashed my hand against the locker to stop myself from falling over,” we heard Henry say. “That is highly unlikely Henry. Come with me and we will discuss it some more with the Deputy Headmaster,” the teacher responded, as we heard Henry complain that he did nothing, as he was led away towards the admin building.

“I think we had better cool it, with calling him shark bait for a while guys, at least until he cools down a bit,” Bryce suggested, and we all nodded in agreement. We did our very best to keep well away from Henry for the rest of the new term, but occasionally he would catch up to us and threaten to beat the hell out of all of us.

I was glad when we had completed our mock exams, and the school term had come to an end. For the final week of the third term, as well as dealing with the mock exams, I was also making final preparations for my overseas trip to Canada. It had taken a lot of work to convince my parents to let me go on this journey to Canada with Jordan, which I was very much looking forward to our Tall Ship Journey.