Continuing with my habit of posting Rather Old News, I thought I would finally provide an update from mid-December. Last year Chris & I were very excited to read that the Endeavour was coming to Fremantle. That excitement wavered a bit when we saw the price of a day sail, though. We hummed and harred, thought about it and discussed it. And then we went, screw it! When are we going to be able to do this again? :D
Like my post last year about the Leeuwin, this will be long and full of photos. Actually, this time there are a lot more photos and they're bigger - because (sorry Leeuwin) the Endeavour is just so much more awesome.
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| Up by the bowsprit |
Having paid a slightly boggling amount for the tickets, we were desperately hoping we would get some wind. Our first trip on the Leeuwin was on a calm day, and although the sails were set, we didn't actually sail - it kinda sucked.
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| A bit of a mess of lines, to the untrained eye! |
For practical (and legal) reasons, the ship can't sail out of the harbour - I guess it could take hours of warping, and if the wind were no good, you'd be stuck! I imagine the rest of the traffic in the harbour wouldn't be too impressed by the amount of room used up, also. So for the start of our trip it was engines only, with the masts looking bare and spindly. It turns out you have to get really quite far out to sea before you can actually start sailing.
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| Picturesque little lighthouse, no? |
The Endeavour sail took place as part of the Perth ISAF Sailing World Championships, so there was a lot of traffic around near the harbour, and we attracted a lot of attention from passing vessels. Not just vessels, either - a helicopter swooped down amazingly close to us! I did take some photos, but they made the helicopter look tiny and didn't convey the feeling of closeness at all. It wasn't very pleasant to be honest - we were trying to enjoy the quiet and peacefulness of the open sea!
Before too long we were able to set sail, so the view went from something like this:
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| Lines everywhere... |
to this:
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| How gorgeous is that?? |
Hurrah! I just can't quite explain properly why I love the feeling of sailing so much. Before I had sailed for the first time I was really, seriously worried that I would end up seasick the whole time - since I tend to get anxious and nauseated on trains, which is enhanced by the feeling that I'm a bit stuck - I can't just turn around and go home, like I can in a car. So I figured I'd feel even more trapped on a ship!
But it's never like that at all - I feel free and alive and so, so well. I think a lot of it is the beautiful feeling of the fresh air rushing past. Ever since the whole IBS drama started, stuffy, still air makes me feel really ill really quickly - so this is the opposite. That's not the whole of it though - there's some other magical sense of joy I can't put my finger on. I just had SO MUCH FUN. Honestly, I'm not sure I've ever had more fun in my life. So what could be EVEN MORE AWESOME AND BRILLIANT? ...
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| SQUEEEEEEEEEEEE! |
OMG OMG OMG THERE WERE DOLPHINS! I know everyone knows that dolphins are brilliant, but I am that dorky person who seriously scans the river for dolphins every time I'm passengering in a car going over a bridge - even on the freeway at 100 km/h. Chris was actually the first person to spot the dolphins, and we were so crafty: we dashed up to the bow to get prime dolphin-watching spots before word spread. It was so fantastic! If I were a dolphin I'm sure I would have actually leapt out of the water and done some fancy tricks, but still, you can't have everything.
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| At the pointy end again |
Up near the bowsprit was my favourite place to hang out anyway - you get the full, glorious feeling of rushing forward through the water.
One of the best things about sailing on the Endeavour, compared to other vessels, is the beautiful, historical feeling attached to all the little details. The Leeuwin might be rigged like the sort of sprightly little barquentine you would read about in a Hornblower novel, but she doesn't look the part. The Endeavour, on the other hand - I could have a little swoon. You can practically hear the bosun piping hands to quarters, and I may have caught myself daydreaming that Horatio himself might emerge from one of the hatches.
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| Rottnest is just visible on the horizon. |
These authentic touches don't stop on desk, either - aside from one deck referred to by the crew as "the 21st century", below decks she's a beautiful replica of the original Endeavour.
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| Don't forget to duck! |
We went on an excellent tour around the lower decks, guided by a lovely lady who had plenty of fascinating details to share about the original Endeavour, as well as some escapades from the crew of the new Endeavour. We had to crawl on hands and knees to reach this point - not like the dodgy old war movies where a 6'6" captain inexplicably has plenty of headroom!
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| Not that much smaller than my house, actually! |
This shows a mess area opened on to by small cabins, with a view through to the Captain's cabin. Off to the right is the cabin used by Joseph Banks, who paid an extraordinary amount of money to accompany the expedition. He brought his two dogs along, and apparently was quite a tall chap. He found he had no hope of fitting into his little hanging cot, so he took the mattress out of the bottom, and slept on the floor - leaving his two dogs to share the cot!
Chris and I absolutely loved these sorts of details :)
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| Just a few guns to keep the ship safe |
Even the handful of guns on the replica were hand-crafted, reproduced using measurements from the original Endeavour's guns. I couldn't get a decent down-the-barrel shot - I was rushing a lot of my shots because it was really, really hard to frame a shot without stacks of people it in.
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| In case of pirates! |
We also enjoyed little details like spotting this "spare main t'glnt" - virtually impossible to see the words in this photo, unfortunately.
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| So many lovely details. |
We were lucky with the weather, too. Being about a week before Christmas, it was hot - but not bakingly, bone dry hot, thank goodness! There were quite a few clouds scattered around - just thin ones, but they made my photos looking upwards seem much darker and more overcast. In actual fact, it was a beautiful, bright blue day.
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| Plenty of sunshine. |
I'm so glad we decided to spend the money to do this, and so grateful to the excellent crew. I find myself increasingly curious about how I would cope with a longer sail - would I get seasick if I went on a 2 or 3 day sail? Spending significant amounts of time below decks makes it much more likely. Maybe one day I'll find out??
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| You can't have enough photos of rigging - honestly. |
We took this last photo as we were leaving, satisfied but in my case, a bit disappointed, because I wanted to keep sailing on and on and on.
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| So long, and thanks for all the dolphins. |
It was quite disappointing not being able to get a good photo of the outside of the ship, so I went hunting online for one. Wow, look at this one! It looks as if they actually fired a gun when they departed Fremantle - I wish we'd been there!
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| Photo from http://www.anmm.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=1372 |
So, sailing! Hurrah! If you've made it this far through the blog post - wow, thanks :D
And some exciting news to finish on: The Replica Ship Duyfken to Return to Perth!
She was built in Fremantle, and with any luck visitors will be able to take day sails when she's back home again. Start saving your pennies, I'm sure it will be worth it!
And some exciting news to finish on: The Replica Ship Duyfken to Return to Perth!
She was built in Fremantle, and with any luck visitors will be able to take day sails when she's back home again. Start saving your pennies, I'm sure it will be worth it!
