Voyage diaries

'We boarded the ship to be greeted by smiling volunteers and watch leaders. We were then assigned our watch colour and number, which was really exciting. We received HSBC T-shirts and baseball caps, which we wore to have our photograph taken.

'On Monday there were high westerly winds that meant training on deck was rather chilly. After we finished training and had tea, we went ashore in Portsmouth. All in all it was a great day.'

*Katie and *Emily

'Nothing beats the feeling of waking up in your own bed… especially as your own bed doesn't sway. But the first breakfast of the voyage put all qualms to rest, as a variety of dishes were well made and quickly supplied. Full cooked breakfast safely eaten, we were given a quick outline of the day by First Officer Stuart. It was exciting to hear that at last we might be leaving the port, and would actually be doing a bit of sailing.

'But first we had to squeeze into our oilskins, and to make matters just that bit more 'comfortable', our harnesses… Once all three watches were gathered on deck, and had managed to successfully count to 16, we were instructed as to how to climb up, across, and down the other side of either the foremast or the mainmast, practicing our climbing skills and handiness with the clips in our harnesses.

'After everyone had completed this, we were briefly told about how to unfold and then fold up the sails, and a clove hitch knot was demonstrated with which to tie the sails back up. Watches were split between sails and given a position with a knot to untie, and later tie back up into the same length of rope.

'This done, we were fed a burger lunch, after which Stuart proceeded to explain how we would brace sails, and who would be stationed where on the length of the ship, as well as go over the safety procedures which had been mentioned the previous day. The lengthy fire alarm was sounded, then the 3 blasts for man overboard, and finally the general emergency pattern of 7 short and 1 long bells.

'A demonstration, complete with hapless volunteer, followed. This showed us how to put on and wear a lifejacket in the case of a real emergency. We were then sent to our mustering point (as a watch, in case of an emergency). Jackets on, tightened, and done, we had to take them off (fashionable as they were), and pack them away neatly. Once done, we were free to visit dry land for one last wander, before the long awaited departure scheduled for 16.30.

'After almost abandoning *Jenny (better luck next time) to help undo the ropes keeping us attached to our mooring, we were piloted out of the port, and onto the (slightly) open seas. We again donned our attractive oilskins and harnesses, and took up positions for sail bracing. On the command of Stuart we practiced bracing the yards to starboard, to port, and then square.

'Soon we reached our destination, off the Isle of Wight, and lowered the anchor. Dinner was served, and then we were free to carry on with evening watches. Sleep followed, as White Watch were up early for breakfast and the 8-12 watch.'

White Watch

'We were woken up at 06.50 for breakfast and we then got ready to go on watch at 08.00. For happy hour our watch cleaned the heads and showers and then we took the bridge. We hauled up the anchor and started to motor around the Isle of Wight. We took it in turns to steer the ship and watch for any obstacles. We then had lunch at 12.30.

'After lunch we had a rest until we were called to our bracing stations so that we could set the sails. We sailed back along the same stretch of water as the sea was too rough to sail into the channel. We then anchored in the same position we started from. Later on we began the murder game which will continue throughout the voyage. We then relaxed until 04.00 when it was our watch again.'

*Susan and *Sarah

'We had anchored at Sandown bay for the previous night and were hopefully setting sail towards Cherbourg, France. Squares in their gear. Blue watch were given the responsibility of managing the headsail, this was a tough job as the winds were rather strong. As we had been anchored overnight, the day workers were given the task of weighing the anchor.

'The Chief Engineer started the engine, this making the ship move at a steady pace. We began on our voyage towards Cherbourg; it was a very uneasy trip hitting the waves with quite a strong force. We had to send people out onto the bow sprit to take off the gaskets, then we had to have a big team of people hauling on the halyard to pull the sail up, and a few more hauling in the sheet. We had people on the boat deck taking the gaskets off, and another party on the halyard.

'We then began happy hour, with the Green watch on the port rail and approx three-quarters of crew puked!!!

'We then continued motoring towards the north coast of France. The voyage continued to be a difficult trip for the majority of the crew to deal with. The pilot came on board at approx. 17.30-ships time to take us into Cherbourg. All fast at 18.30, with driving wind and rain, just in time for the force 8 to blow through.

'Finally, the voyage crew were briefed and we were all granted shore leave until 23.00. The majority of the crew enjoyed a trip into the town of Cherbourg, where they found small shops and ate plenty of ice cream.'

*Kevin

'We were woken in Cherbourg for breakfast and afterwards I headed for day work as others had breakfast and cleaned the ship. My day work consisted of cleaning brass and others cleaned the decks.

'When the ship was sparkling clean, all three watches went onto a quayside for a game of tug of war. Of course, all three teams were equally distributed with the stronger and not so strong voyage crew. Each team had their own theme team song...' (ie making theme singular). White watch were singing 'Blues and Reds are plastic, but White watch are fantastic, la la la la Hey! La la la la Hey!' the Red watch were singing 'I'm Red watch 'til I die; I'm Red watch 'til I die. I know I am, I'm sure I am, I'm Red watch 'til I die!' and the Blue watch were singing 'Blue watch, Blue watch 'tion, for your duties fall out!'.

'It was all in good team spirit and as two teams were competing the other team was cheering on. Each team played four heats and the overall winners were the Red watch, with White watch coming second. Afterwards we had a heaving line throwing competition in which each member of each watch had a go at throwing the line with the furthest thrown winning. In the end it came to a draw between White watch and Blue watch and so the Watch Leaders of each team had a turn and the White watch won!

'After the fun and games we all went back on board for a buffet lunch that we ate outside in the sunshine. The next task was to do the 'most useless souvenir' or as they call it the 'tacky souvenir' competition. Each watch went on shore leave and had to buy the most useless souvenir for less than five euros that they could find. We then had free time to do whatever we pleased such as shopping and relaxing. When we got back on board many people decided that it was perfect weather and timing to climb to the top of the mast and have pictures taken. After dinner we set sail again and the first part of the boat race happened in the waist, apparently the second part should take place tomorrow evening.

'We gathered in the mess for our 'tacky souvenir' competition these included a singing cockerel ornament from White watch, an apple and praying boy from Red watch and a turtle from Blue watch. Captain David was one of our judges with the two youth mentors.

'After this eventful day, everyone was feeling tired but high-spirited. We had free time and watches, guitar playing and singing, games of cards in the mess and then bed.'

*Anna

'Hopefully we will be making port at Ipswich Monday morning, so until then we have two days of some steady sailing to do, so it's fairly relaxing. In saying that, I still had to clean up a load of minging greases and we had two lectures that practically sent us to sleep, but it contributes to our competent crew award so I guess it was worth listening to.

'The highlight of today was the tropical bird competition, one of my favourite ones! For this, each watch had to create their very own tropical bird and they could be as creative as they wanted to be. We had to make up a name for our bird, where it lived, a mating call and a strut. Those were the easy parts. The difficult bit was to dress up a male and female member of the group as our made up bird. For Blue watch it was *Veronica and *Sam as the frisky 'Brapanil', for the Red watch it was *Richard and *Candice as the colourful 'red tits' and for White watch it was *Anna and *Jemima as the mouthy 'Liver birds'.

'It was a close competition (I think) and every group made an excellent effort considering the small amount of time we had, but there had to be a winner and luckily we had *Tina, *Tracey and *Lexi as the judges, so the competition was fair. The winner of the tropical bird competition was the one and only Blue watch (hooray!) with white watch coming in second and Red watch in last place. Everyone had a great laugh at the cheesy Steve Irwin/David Attenborough impersonations, the pole dancing and the mating call of the birds (brrrrrrrap!). Definitely one of the best competitions yet.

'After my favourite meal yet (which I couldn't help but have two helpings of), things really livened up. *Daniel (the medic), *Ryan and *Richard showed us their talent on the guitar and everyone joined in with the songs (we nailed Breakfast at Tiffany's).

'Unfortunately my group (Blue watch) were on the 20.00-24.00 watch, but that didn't get us down as it gave us plenty of time to practise the 8 knots for the knot relay the next day (I still have four more to learn!).'

*William

'Today was an early start or a late finish for the mighty Red watch crew with the 00.00-04.00 watch, followed with a graveyard shift from the white team. Both watches enjoyed an amazing night sky and sunrise. Owing to the fact of being in sail up through the Dover Straights from Cherbourg. Breakfast saw marauding zombies take over the mess, whilst White watch caught up on lost sleep in their bowls of porridge. During a non-eventful happy hour the crew enjoyed rum, rum and some more rum, before being unleashed onto the high seas in the ship's two speed boats. Captain Dave was prohibited from using the larger more powerful rib due to his repeated attempts to commandeer cargo vessels – ending up with a game of chicken with a 10,000 tonne cargo ship. The outcome of this was decided as a draw as the passengers of captain Dave's rib were not in a fit state to give first hand accounts of their voyage.

'Lunch and downtime followed these dramatic events, after this the 3 watches were sent aloft to tidy up and stow the sails, with *Sally, *Steven, *Jim and *Mike of Red watch being sent to the Royal. During the time up in the rigging *Olivia's sunglasses decided they wanted a change of owner and now reside over the eyes of a Giant Squid now the coolest creature in the sea. The call for dinner was announced to eager ears even though some were 50 ft in the air. To great dismay and fear, the rope knowledge test was announced shortly after an orgasmic dinner of chicken curry and chocolate fudge cake. White watch were the close losers of this challenge but chief officer Stuart in an unexpected show of kindness didn't stick to his threat of a whole night's watch to the losing team.

'Following this, a war of chanting broke out between Red watch and White watch whilst Blue watch cowered under their chairs in sheer terror. But with the arrival of giant man eating sea cucumbers, the watches joined forces to rid the ship of the terrible monsters thus ensuring the ship's survival. After defeating these enemies of the ship, we were set upon by vicious Divers (aka Pirates) after the ship's wealth of mobile phones and MP3 players.'

Written by the one and only *Mike of the mighty Red Watch Crew! Red watch till I die!

'04.00 hit, and *Stuart and the Blue Watch team weighed anchor to set off down the river into the delightful town of Ipswich. By that time the giant sea cucumber that had chucked in *Linda's boat and nibbled on her elbow…to her surprise she quite enjoyed it...*Matt was most displeased. That was the last we saw of *Linda and the giant sea cucumber for a few hours…:-P HOW VERY DARE THEY! Happy hour came and a reluctant *Sally cleaned the heads while *Mike and *Richard stood around ordering her about. Just down the green mile, *Steven was swarmed with the odour and fear of the girls toilets, but like the super hero he is, he overcame his fear…by crying like a woman and spewing in most places on the ship.

When *Linda had returned, the mighty, mighty, mighty Reds, the not so crap Whites and the head pecking Blues had agreed to a duel, the war of the century in the form of a boat race. Heat One commenced with a traditional Red vs White. In the Red boat was *Mike the cox , *Sally, *Cameron, *Donelle and *Richard, whilst in the White boat was *Dylan, *Hannah, *Steven, *Matt and *Nick…WITH THE FRINGE as a complete cox. Red watch began with a bad start but almost within no time stormed the river Orwell as White were rapidly falling behind. With no surprise Red beat them, thanks to the cox…*Mike and his amazing crew completing the course in a mere 12.04 minutes. After a drawn out battle, the Blues had been announced as the winners with 27.59 Reds second with 33.09 and White with 37.16…(no surprise there then!)

'After lunch the girls spent a while preparing their masks and wigs; we took off to the town centre of Ipswich. Four hours later *Nick drags *Sally, *Candice, *Stella, *Katie and *Emily out of the town centre kicking and screaming. Then we arrived at the boat ten minutes late as *Nick in a decision of sheer stupidity took the girls home (Stavros). He walked home carrying numerous amounts of New Look, Boots, Primark and River Island bags. *Sally in a desperate attempt to not be late ran home with no shoes on through the terrains of cigarette ash, broken glass and dog do but failed miserably.

'*Michaela – Monkey Sanchez – had been scrubbing the deck and the side of the ship all day long while *Sandy was up aloft, *Cinderellas shall go to the ball…

'With a balloon race up and coming, we gathered in the mess unaware of the events to come. Once again to nobody's surprise Red watch stormed Blue and White as *Sally received the most important text in the world and anyone that is aware of this will realise what she is talking about…*big smiles*

'*Linda, *Candice and *Sally once again woke everybody up at around midnight by screaming like wailing banshees. How very dare you, you loser!

'*Jim was most displeased with this, really we love him but wild animals only wake up at night time…'

This was written by *Sally as you can probably tell and I will always be RED WATCH TILL I DIE…:-D

'Another day on the Stavros. With more surprises in store.'Yesterday was surprisingly lovely weather-wise, the sun was out, as were many pairs of shorts and the odd strappy tops, and that was just the lads. The sun tan lotion was used by the barrelful, and also the after sun (!) …

'We woke up in Ipswich to a lovely breakfast of fried egg, bacon and baked beans with toast, washed down with orange juice.

'As we travelled back down the River Orwell out of Ipswich, we saw loads and loads of jellyfish emerge from under the stern of the ship, cast along by the force of the water. I had had an early watch of 02.00-03.00, watching the gangplank, so that no one unauthorised could get in the boat, so an early start was the last thing I wanted, but it turned out fine in the end, and the weather certainly ensured a few smiles.

'Blue Watch had the early afternoon watch, and we were told that we'd be allowed to go ashore, as we would anchor for an overnight stay, in a bay just off Margate.

'We were given a couple hours to go into Margate and on the beach! Several of the crew took turns to ship eight of the voyage crew at any one time to the beach in the ribs where we needed to climb up the ladder to get to the beach.

'Everyone had tons fun whether it be in Primark shopping, or generally just splashing around in the sea, or even just sunbathing on the beach, either way we all had a total blast! Some even launched themselves off the high harbour wall that they climbed up and by all accounts thoroughly enjoyed the adrenaline rush that came alongside it.

'When we all finally got back home on the old Stavros we were all treated to a fabulous stew with vegetables and dumplings – 'Gosh you kitchen gang are good to us' - meanwhile as people were eating little did we know *Stuart and crew were planning a dreaded knot relay race…

'We were all so worried and the competition between the Reds, Blues and Whites was fierce. I mean there were 8 of them to remember, (the reef knot, double sheet bend, sheet bend, figure-of-eight, clove hitch, rolling hitch, bowline and the full turn and two half hitches) and we all knew we had a few, which we definitely could achieve however we needed to be able to expect the unexpected.

'Luckily though we all tried the knots and in the end the rightful team won, no - only joking, we all did really well. Although accusations of cheating still flew around, but I'm not suggesting for one minute that it is the actions of sore losers (!).

'As Blues flew back to watch the remaining gang sat down in the mess to watch a movie it did however take us a while to actually start the DVD as nobody knew what to do he, he, the movie was a laugh and even better because like always we were all joking around as a group and it soon kicked in that we don't have long left on the Stavros, but one thing is for sure we're all going to make the most of it and love every last second – even the 'bad jokes'!

'Overall the day was Fabulous.

'p.s: captain Dave said we could stay on the ship so maybe we won't go home.'

*Kezia and *Heather – BLUE WATCH!!!!!!