The Special Moment that Lasted 10 Days

This special moment happened this year actually about June time, but before i tell you about the moment or moments let me give you the back story. About mid way though last year (2009) i was wondering what i should do next year, i decided that putting my name into the ballot for the STS Young Endeavor youth program would be fun but the chances of getting pick were slim at best, but as fate would have it early this year i received a call saying they would like to offer me a spot on the Newcastle to Brisbane voyage. Needless to say i was a bit apprehensive of going on a boat that rocked in the waves with a bunch of strangers that i had never met before in a state far away from my home. Eventually i agreed to go on the adventure.

It all began in the port city of Newcastle on the north eastern coast of New South Wales, previously there had been a mini tornado a few kilometers up the coast the day before needless to say but there was torrential rain, and the waves out side the bay looked a bit like a washing machine. After we had spent the first day in port learning the basics, we headed out into the unknown and the storm. it was in that storm that my physical and mental boundaries would be pushed. The first of them was the seasickness, i have never felt so bad and doubt i ever will it was like shear death. Which made all the other things i did with the sickness all the more challenging like mid storm when my watch had guts watch which is from midnight to four in the morning (the worst of all the watches) we were ordered to untie one of the main squaresail. Now i am not one for heights, being a shortie my self but this really pushed my comfort zone 30 meters up, wind and rain blasting you, and the boat rocking violently, all this while your standing on a thin bit of rope, undoing the sail. Mind you the biggest motivation was that i wasn't alone up there, my whole watch was up there with me, so i had the feeling i couldn't let them down. That is perhaps my most memorable moment and then arriving at Jail Bay to a beautiful red dawn, magical. The best cure for sea sickness is hugging a tree and that's just what i did.