Eco Youth Challenge & Adventure

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Day 1: Seeing the sail training ship Leeuwin II, for the first time as she lay alongside Victoria Quay raised mixed feelings in me, what would it be like? Had I 'over sold' this voyage in my imagination? Will I be disappointed? And so on. This was further heightened be a delay of several hours whilst some repairs were completed. Anyway, by 2.00pm we were finally under way and the great adventure had begun.

Halyards, downhauls, sheets and clewlines!! "Haul this, ease that, come up! Belay! 2-6 Heave!" Never have I felt such a clueless idiot. All afternoon the crew put us through an initiation that had our heads spinning. We must have tacked about 10 times and it seems that all we did was haul-haul-haul. By the end of an exhausting 4 hours, we had touched virtually all of the 100 or more ropes on the vessel!

It was quite windy and quite a few people lost their lunch. Thankfully, I held it together and was OK, I think I was too busy to find the time to be sick. My watch was Green Watch, which was lead by the indomitable Harry, a great fellow who wore a tee-shirt and shorts whatever the weather or time of day. After anchoring, our watch had the job of furling the upper and lower topsails. This entailed going aloft, out onto yards, leaning over and grabbing handfuls of flapping sail and gathering it up. All he time you were doing this, your feet are on the 'horse', a thin piece of rope, with nothing below you! Even though you are clipped on by your safety harness, it's still quite an experience. By the time we had done both sails, I was mentally and physically spent and not a little confused.

Day 2: The day started early for me as Green watch had 'anchor watch' between 4.00am - 5.00am. Not very much to do but it was really nice to see the sun come up. I found out that the ship is manned 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and is never left empty.

Every morning started the same; a wake up call and onto the deck for warming up and stretching exercises. One of the Australian kids made a name for himself, by running around the deck once and then straight to the side to throw up! And we were all still at anchor! After that came breakfast and cleaning, washing and polishing the ship.

After a late start, we set sail for Garden Island and traveled under sail down the narrow channel in Cockburn Sound that lead to the island and naval base. Activities were far less hectic the second day so we had a chance to work out what we were meant to be doing and what job each rope did and how it related to the task in hand. Luckily, we got to do the braces (which change the 'angle of attack' of the topsail yards in relation to the wind) on two successive tacks and so the second time we did pretty smoothly, even Dave the First Mate said so.

Lunch at 11.40am - we were so hungry! The food on board was really good, thanks to Andreas our Austrian chef, who later showed himself to be quite a philosopher, and Tracy his assistant.

We anchored quite early in the afternoon but there was still a couple of hours work in putting the ship to bed, so to speak. Green watch was given the main and nock staysails to furl which was really hard until you knew how to do it. At one point, the Captain got involved and virtually furled one sail single-handed, very embarrassing! It's hard to enjoy yourself if you are not contributing and don't know what to do. At this point, I still was in two minds whether Leeuwin was going to work for me or not. Several of the Malaysian participants took the opportunity (whilst Green Watch was struggling with the dreaded staysails) to go up the main mast and read the message on the very top. Frankly, at this juncture, I had decided that after the Garden island trip (on the next day), I was going to tell Harry that I didn't want to go aloft anymore.

Prayer on Board ship was a major challenge; the girls had the use of the small saloon but there really wasn't a lot of space. For the rest of us, it was just try to find space wherever you could and pray. However, on the evening of the 2nd night, almost all of us prayed Mahgrib and Isha' on deck, berjemaah. I'm not sure what the Australians thought of this all, but several of them approached us at odd times to ask us about Islam.

Day 3: We should have realized that the day started too easily for Green watch. After the usual cleaning up, etc., we were taken out o Buchanan Bay on Garden Island in one of the dories, using an outboard motor. Another watch joined us there whilst we waited for Boyd Wykes to meet us. During our wait, we saw dolphins catching fish quite close to the shore. After a short lecture on the unique flora of Garden Island, we set off to walk the kilometre or so across to the western shore. We had a number of activities to do and places to go, but we just were not working as a team in virtually any area. To me, the third day was the low point of the voyage. Despite the fact that the island is really beautiful and unspoiled, I couldn't say that I enjoyed it very much. But the worst was yet to come.

After a refreshing swim and snorkel over some sea-grass beds, we had to row the dory the 2 kilometres back to the ship. Only one girl really knew how to row, I had some idea but the rest of us were hopeless! In quite choppy seas and against the wind, we struggled and 'caught crabs' (to completely miss the sea with your stroke) and generally failed to operate as a team. We were unbalanced as to strength, made worse by the fact that I was keen to demonstrate that I was stronger than anybody else. Good for the ego but really destructive to teamwork! The inevitable result was that we spent most of our time describing erratic circles on the sea with very little movement in the direction of the Leeuwin. Even when the 'fizz boat' came to tow us for a while, we still took 2 hours to complete the row. What was far worse was that we had upset and humiliated one of our watch, a boy who just couldn't row. That evening, he had completely withdrawn from the watch and wouldn't talk to any of us. I felt so bad about it that the next day, I sought him out and apologized for my part of the fiasco. It was truly our worst day

(I actually wrote in my journal that night that I felt that 14 year-olds were not mature enough to really understand what it was that they were meant to learn on the Leeuwin. Boy, did I get that wrong-it was the adults that had to do the learning!)

What I didn't know until later was that Catrina (who had been with us on the island) had confirmed with Captain Petroff, who had seen the problem. A decision was then taken to split the adults into a new watch, to be known a the Grey watch under Doug, the ship's Purser. At the time, I understood that it would be good for the youngsters but I was concerned about being marginalised, as we were older. However, we worked very well together and had no problems at all. Grey watch now comprised: Astrid, Colin, Lefki, Jonelle, Rachael and myself. In my mind, this was the turning point of the voyage.

Day 4: A big sailing ship like Leeuwin can almost be thought of as being like a large and wayward child. It demands constant attention, it is subject to rapid changes of mood and can give you a hard time if you ignore it or treat it badly. But, like a child, it is capable of giving you such pleasure and delight that all previous bad times are immediately forgotten. Such was our fourth day.

For me, it started early as I was on 'anchor watch' from 4.00am-5.00am. This meant that I saw a beautiful, gentle sunrise heralding the start of another bright and sunny day. By the time we sat sail, the breeze had dropped and we had to motor through the very narrow channel connecting Garden Island with the rest of Cockburn Sound before turning west and sailing out to sea beyond Rottnest Island. Clear of the island, we quickly picked up a stiff breeze, filing our sails. Bounding over the rich deep blue ocean, with the warm breeze in our faces, it was just wonderful. We congratulated ourselves as having conquered the demon of sea-sickness and challenged the sea to give us more. And so it did.

As we moved off the continental shelf and got into deep waters some 45 miles off Fremantle, we picked up a 2-3 metre swell, together with a much stronger wind. It was not long after that we all started falling to the dreaded mal de mer that only shortly beforehand we had scoffed at. Although the original plan was to have a night sail, the Captain sensibly realized that he would not have enough people to safely crew the ship, so we put about and headed for Rottnest Island again. I was sick several times and was not able to do anything as the slightest movement brought on nausea and vomiting. Though feeling off-colour, neither Aishah nor Adam were sick and they spent a lot of time looking after those who were. Even members of the crew were throwing up, some spectacularly so!

Despite the heavy sea, the late afternoon sky was beautifully clear and we watched the sun dip below the horizon. As the last trace of the disc disappeared, we clearly saw it turn almost lime-green; the famed 'green flash'. Although I was still feeling like death, I was glad that I had witnessed it. All too slowly, Rottnest Island hove into view and as we approached it, the swell settled and I began to feel a lot better. So much so that after we had anchored, I was fit enough to help Harry furl the nock staysail, standing in the rigging some 15 metres above the deck, despite the stiff wind and darkness. When we came down, Andreas, who never seemed to be affected by anything, gave Harry and myself the good news that he had saved some of the evening meal for us. I ate heartily that night in the satisfaction that in spite of my earlier sickness, I was able to operate effectively and help put the ship to bed. All in all, this was my best and most satisfying day.

<Day 5: Though starting quite clear, the weather quickly deteriorated, with strong 50km/hr winds, driving rain and lightning. Thus the sails that had been earlier set had to be furled. Although we were all wearing 'waterproof' overalls, the rain quickly exploited any gaps in our protective clothing and we were soon almost as wet as if we hadn't bothered. It was really marvelous, and a little humbling, to see the youngsters up on the yards, working together, furling the sails and just getting the job done in spite of the terrible conditions. Because of the weather, we didn't get much sailing in but headed back to our previous anchor point off Garden Island.
In the evening, as ever, there were various activities, the main one being 'Sod's opera', in which all the watchers had to produce a sketch or song or some little light-hearted piece connected with the voyage. Before that, however, we all had a chance to speak our inner thoughts and hopes and what we had learned in the previous five days. It was really beautiful - no one interrupted anyone and anyone and everybody listened and contributed. There were many beautiful and deep things said at that time.

Again our watch had anchor to do, so I was up from midnight to 2.00am. My main recollection of that watch was the beautiful aroma of pine trees being carried in the damp air from the island.

Day 6: Much of day 5 had been spent in getting the Leeuwin looking ship-like, ready for the final sail in. We didn't set any sail but motored the short distance from our mooring off Garden Island to Fremantle harbour. This was a very relaxed time, with many people exchanging addresses and lots of photos being taken. As we approached the harbour, we all climbed onto yards or into the rigging, all wearing the red Leeuwin smocks. Aishah was given the singular honour of helming the ship into the harbour. We all waved and shouted at the many pleasure craft that were out and the people on the harbour walls. A Greenpeace ship was in harbour and got a big cheer from everybody.

After we had tied up, there was a short ceremony during which Catrina handed out our certificates. When that was done, two MK kids gave her a print of the ship that all of us had signed and written on - I think she was very touched. Following that, I made a short speech of thanks and gave out our Leeuwin tee-shirts to Capt. Petroff and the permanent crew and called a Malaysian participant from each watch to present a tee-shirt to their respective watch leaders. I'm sure they were quite touched as there were many hugs and kisses at that time and possibly a few tears. Capt. Petroff then invited the families gathered on the quay-side to come aboard and inspect the ship. I have a wonderful recollection of seeing Matthew (from Green watch) hugging his entire family - younger brother, mother and his dad - in a manner that seemed to encompass them all; I almost cried.>

And so we parted and dispersed, each to his or her family and friends; each with his or her personal memories of high points and low times, of fears overcome and new friendships made. From being tightly bound to each other in our watches, we separated, but all with wonderful feelings of comradeship, shared experiences and a knowledge that each of us had been in places that we would never had dared before. Of heights climbed, literally and figuratively, that would have defeated us just a short week before and with a new-found confidence that we can do new things and we can achieve more than we, or others, thought.

In was my privilege to have had a part in organised this wonderful adventure and to have witnessed the growth in mental stature that took place in all the youngsters. This was my reward and it is perhaps best to complete this account with the insight of a 14 year old Malaysian girl when she said, "I learned never to give up".

Leeuwin, I salute you, your crew and all who have given their time and effort into making it happen and keeping it going. For be assured, you are all doing something very special you are changing young lives. Never give up, and never stop.