Latitude: 39⁰ 37.4’S

Longitude: 132⁰ 50.7’E

Distance travelled: 52 NM

Average Speed: 2 knots

Weather Conditions: Light winds, Skies clearing.

Hello again! And as requested I have added the weather into the above information so you all know the conditions we are in during the day.

So the last 24 hours have been quite exciting for the crew, especially during the night when they were up on deck during their watches.

On the evening of the 28^th we all settled into to the ship for the night, but little did we know that over the horizon, a large blanket of fog was slowly rolling in, creating an amazing sight (or lack of sight) from up on deck. During the night the fog enclosed the ship in a huge white blanket and the damp air spread its way through the companion ways to the different decks, dampening all surfaces it could find.

Also during the night, more bioluminescence was spotted in the water, lighting up the majority of the water surrounding the ship. After a small while of gazing into the stunning “submerged stars”, another crew member spotted a large school of fish slowly making its way through the lit up water.

So with all of the surrounds being taken into account with the fog blanket tightly hugging the ship, the bioluminescence in the water and the school of fish, it made to be quite a magical watch for those who witnessed it.

During the morning of the 29^th while many of the voyage crew were just relaxing in the 18^th century deck after happy hour, all hands were called up on deck. Not for the normal reason to hand sails, but all were told to bring their cameras up on deck to capture some photos of the pod of pilot whales that were visible in the distance. As more crew emerged from below the whales slowly began to swim closer to the ship and soon enough were playfully swimming through the small wake that the Endeavour was creating as she sailed. Many of the voyage crew took photos of the pod of pilot whales, there was at least 15 in the pod including some smaller calves swimming with their mothers.

The last few days have been very smooth sailing, although over the last few hours the professional crew have been preparing for the cold front that is due to pass over in the late hours of tonight, voyage crew will be helping to prepare the sails for some heavy weather sailing as we are expecting south to south easterly winds with a strength up to about 35 knots.

After such a magical 24 hours, I am pleased to say that all is well…

Latitude: 40⁰ 11.4’S

Longitude: 132⁰ 55.9’E

Distance travelled: 140 NM

Average speed: 5.8 knots

So yet again we have had a quiet 24 hours, all went as normal during the afternoon and the evening of the 27^th. As for the night time activities, during the Captains watch he took the voyage crew through the chart room, familiarising them with equipment such as radios, GPS units, Radar displays and some aspects of chart work.

In the morning there were a couple of stories about seeing bioluminescence in the water during the night, a voyage crew described this as “stars that have fallen onto the water” as it shone brightly under the small swell.

The next day patience seemed to wearing a bit thin since we have been motoring for a few days, so what does the Captain do?? “ALL HANDS ON DECK!!”. It seems that the weather patterns are now favourable for us to sail so it is all hands to set all of our squares, fore and aft’s by a very enthusiastic voyage crew! The ship is soon under billowing canvas with the “iron staysails” silent. HMB Endeavour once again becomes a ship under sail Huzzah!

After the ships sails have had set her motion on the water changes, you can almost feel Endeavour sigh in relief….as she gently cuts her way through the water now with the wind abaft the beam and gentle rolling sea’s

Fair winds and following sea’s…..for now

All is well.

Latitude: 40⁰ 12.8’S

Longitude:  130⁰ 02.0’E

Distance travelled: 158 NM

Average speed: 6.5 knots

So yet another exciting day in the Great Australian Bight! After the egg drop just after lunch a lot quietened down, until, much too every one’s surprise, all hands were called up on deck for a special “proceeding” at sunset. As the crew all waited eagerly on deck to see what the fuss was about, they watched as the captain came up from below all dressed in his official Captains uniform with his hat on and his hair tied back (that doesn’t happen very often). Much to everyone’s delight, one of our Upperyardies Eddie also suited up for the “proceeding”. Once everyone was up on deck it was announced that a couple on board had organised a special treat for us all but especially for themselves. Now as we were now in International Waters, the captain now has the authority to marry people and also renew wedding vows.

Paul and Christine have been married for 35 years and have two wonderful children out of their marriage and what better opportunity to renew your wedding vows than in the middle of the Great Australian Bight on an 18^th century tall ship?

All of the crew gathered around as the Captain made a small speech about Christine’s and Paul’s marriage and to congratulate them on their amazing success’s during that time. Afterwards, Chris and Paul made a small speech about the definite highlights of their time together, followed by a kiss, which of course, had to be followed by a cannon fire!!! As the sun set, the cannon was fired and the flag was taken down. Many photos were taken by the entire crew, who were incredibly happy and excited about the outcome of the “proceeding”.

Once again, everyone went down to the 18^th to sling their hammocks and got ready for a quiet night.

During the night the ship sailed calmly over an invisible border suddenly changing the time and of course, changing the state!!! HMB Endeavour is now in South Australia!! And conveniently enough around the same time, we also sailed to 40⁰ Latitude, so we are also in the roaring forties! As a small tradition of the professional crew, everyone dressed accordingly for the celebration of entering a new state….

The next morning was quiet with the normal routine going ahead and also a morning lecture with the Captain about weather patterns and meteorology.

And just to make it slightly odd for the next couple of days, we have decided to change to the right time over the next three days, adjusting the time half an hour a day.

All is well.

Latitude: 38⁰ 41.0’S

Longitude: 127⁰ 29.4’E

Distance travelled: 126 NM

Average speed: 5.2 knots

So here we are on day 7, half way through our 14 day voyage across the Great Australian Bight and everyone on board have quite happily fallen into a daily routine, ensuring that they get enough sleep, relaxing time and of course time on watch.

In the evening of the 25^th there was a buzz of excitement as the watches gathered in their spare time to produce their “space crafts” for the infamous “egg drop” eggstravaganza scheduled for the next day and some also worked on their performance for the last night SODS event.

During the night while the captain was up on watch, he took the members of the voyage crew who were on deck, through the stars, showing them different constellations and showing them how to “star walk” by sighting a prominent star that can refer to another prominent star and then to the another…….being over 300 Nautical Miles out to sea with a 360 degree horizon was the perfect setting.

Huzzah!! It is now Australia day! And to start the celebrations we of course began the day with!! …Happy hour… but once that was out of the way the crew were allowed to put some more work into their “space crafts”  before the competition was to begin after lunch.

For lunch yet again we had to keep another Australia day tradition, so we had some snags, lamb chops and salad while sitting up on deck listening to a playlist of some Australian classics that some of the crew had prepared earlier, not to mention a lot of the crew dressing as “Australian” as they could…

Once lunch had finished and all was packed up, the decision was made that the “egg drop” would commence at 1330 hours, so there was a quick rush for the watches to put the very final touches on their “space crafts”.

As soon as 1330 was called, all crew raced up onto the waist to watch the event, with the space crafts being scored on not only the ability to keep the egg intact, but their “technical design” their accuracy of hitting the target on deck, and how well they presented their craft.

Under the watchful eye of our Health and Safety Technicians…

The event was allowed to proceed. First came the creation from Main mast named “The Green Flash” after the phenomenal sighting at sunset a few days ago, it was made from cardboard with an “aeroplane jelly” filling and let’s just say…. Things didn’t end well for “the green flash” nor did it end well for the egg pilot inside as it was rather smashed.

Next up was Foremast’s creation, the “Spirit of Eggbert”. It was quite well made and quite solid compared to “the green flash”  also made out of cardboard but the inside was different… it had a small egg casing inside and the egg itself was cushioned with tallow. Even though it didn’t land anywhere near the target, it did however land in someone’s lap before falling to the deck, with the egg still intact.

The last contestant was Mizzenmast’s creation, “The Eggdeavour” and some of the expressions on the crews faces were easily showing what they were thinking… The Eggdeavour was a simple design with just a large cone made out of paper with rice bubbles and honey in the nose of the cone to provide some padding when it landed. Once it came time to drop it from the main course yard, the watch member who let it go chose a spot in front of the mast, to allow for wind since their space craft was so light, and with that, they let it go and it landed no more than 5cms from the Target… with the egg still INTACT!

So it was a clear win for “the Eggdeavour”… and the time to settle down after all the excitement of the morning…

All is well

Latitude: 37⁰  27.6’ S

Longitude:  124⁰  50.4’E

Distance travelled:  120 NM

Average speed:  5 knots

So after all the excitement of yesterday, the last 24 hours has been rather quiet and relaxing for the crew. During the afternoon they all settled back into their watch routines, though this time they were required to be all rugged up on deck due to the cold wind and rougher seas that had graduated during the first hours of the afternoon, causing spray over the bow and a few sets of cold hands. Once night set in, the engines were turned back on so we could gain some more ground while the majority of the crew slept.

Although during the 12-4 watch this morning, according to some of the crew there was a lot of sing-a-long happening up on the quarter deck, with the theme songs from The Lion King, The Jungle Book, The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, along with some good old sea shanties.

Once everyone was awake for the day and the voyage crew had sat down for their morning meeting on the waist, the Captain made a special announcement. As tomorrow will be Australia Day, there have been a couple of organised activities for the day, one being the infamous “egg drop” challenge. Where each watch must design a “space craft” made out of fully biodegradable materials, to house a raw egg from the galley, it then must be able to survive the drop from the main topsail yard with the egg in one piece.

So many of our voyage crew gathered in their spare time to begin preparations for the event.

The rest of the day was normal routine and standing watches… but only until tomorrow…

All is well.

Kanimbla is moving to Hope Islet today to spend our last day of the survey.  We pulled up anchor at 8 am, it only takes half an hour to get there.  Wayne our technician from James Cook University is a mad keen fisherman.  He threw a hook in as we left and within 10 minutes he had a fish. Tonight’s dinner looks like this!  Wahoo!

We arrived at Hope Cay at 9.30 am and by 10 am the mag team was away in their boat. We also had a team on the cay to survey and metal detect there.  There was nothing of historical significance, but much more evidence of modern visitation than at West Islet.  There were iron star pickets driven into the cay and the shallows in the reef.  There also appears to be the remains of an engine block.  Possibly these were anchorage points left by fishermen who visit the area.

The mag teams came back with a few anomalies buoyed for investigation.  Two teams of divers went out for what is likely to be our last dives.  They will be back by lunchtime and we will make a decision to either stay anchored here for the afternoon or start our trip back to Gladstone.  We hear that there are gale warnings out for the Queensland coast, so that may slow us down the closer we get.

Anyway, once we start to move we won’t be able to connect to our satellite to send back any further information.  So this is it, our last  update from the field.  We will give you a final wrap-up once we are back in the office.  Hope you have enjoyed our reports on the progress we made.  It has been a tremendously busy and productive time.

Cheers
Paul and the rest of the team

P.S As Xanthe stayed on Silentworld she wasn’t here to provide our usual quality images.  And just so you don’t think Xanthe is a figment of our imagination… Here is one of the rare photographs of our photographer!

People woke up early this morning.  They are excited at the prospect of finding another wreck today. The conditions are perfect!  The wind had swung to the east and the waves are nearly flat.  Our intrepid mag team can’t wait to get out, so a boat is launched off the top deck and Nigel, Lee and Wayne from James Cook University head out at 6 am.

They came back an hour later with reports of a large anomaly in the gutter spotted yesterday.  In magnetometer speak it is a multiple di-polar anomaly with a maximum amplitude of 800 gamma lasting at least 6 seconds.  In simple English, it means a scattered site of iron debris covering an area of 30-50 metres.  Our reference tables for the magnetometer allow us to convert the strength of the anomaly to weight of iron. In 10 metres of water an anomaly of 800 gamma equates to a mass of iron of approximately 10 tonnes!

After breakfast we sent out the two magnetometer teams again.  The morning team went back to the west side of the north reef to confirm the earlier find.  The other team was working in the lagoon around the coral cay.  By mid-morning dive teams were sent into the gutter with metal detectors to try and isolate the source of the anomaly.  Three successive dives were unable to locate the source.

At lunchtime we debriefed on the results of our mag and metal detector surveys.  Consensus of opinion is that the source of the anomaly is buried beneath the coral sand at such a depth that it is beyond the metal detector’s sensitivity, but is so large that it easily definable on the magnetic signature of the magnetometer.  As we are not allowed to disturb the bottom sediments by any excavation, we are unable to confirm the source iron.

From the historical records we know that the Lion had a 316 lb iron anchor, two iron try-pots weighing a total of 676 lbs., 500 iron harpoons and lances which would weigh over 1 tonne, and 6 tonnes of hoop iron to bind the whale oil barrels.  We also assume that the Lion was armed with at least one cannon, as the accounts for the fit-out of the voyage lists two casks of cannon powder.  We also know that on its previous voyage Captain Hardwick used canon to ward off an attack by South Sea Islanders. This would seem to correlate very closely to the observed anomaly.

Photographer: Xanthe Rivett

All divers were up by 4 pm.  We moved everyone onto the coral cay for the annual team photo.  Unfortunately, with the two second time delay Xanthe wasn’t able to get into her own photo!

The Dive team. Photographer: Xanthe Rivett

The ANMM team (R-L) Kieran, Paul, Lee, Nigel with Peter from Oceania Maritima. Photographer: Xanthe Rivett

We had our final dinner together tonight.  Tomorrow Silentworld II is having a rest day.  Kanimbla will be moving to Hope Islet to spend our last day of the survey.  The guano vessel Lone Star is known to have been lost there.

More tomorrow…

Paul

The anomoly. Photographer: Xanthe Rivett

We woke up to great conditions this morning. The wind is still coming from the north, but it has dropped off considerably and the seas are much calmer as well.  Today we are off on a Lion hunt!

After breakfast we sent out two magnetometer teams on the north side of the reef.  One team was working from the northern entrance moving to the west and the other from the entrance to the east.  By mid-morning the west team had come back in with a moderate anomaly to be checked out.  A dive team was sent out and at the bottom (at 17 metres depth) was coral sand with gently undulating ridges from the surge and current.

After lunch the mag teams went back out again.  Another dive team went in search of the anomaly and a team of snorkel divers searched the shallow lagoon on the west side of the entrance.  They noticed a deep gutter of water varying between 4 to 10 meters deep just to the south inside the outer reef and just north of the shallow lagoon.  This fits the captain’s description of the wrecking of the Lion.

…the lookout-man discovered broken water right ahead; the helm was immediately put down (to star board,) but too late to clear the reef, the vessel grounding immediately. She soon after forged over the outer reef-and became fixed, falling over with her deck to the reef.

We remained on the reef three days, employed in getting ready the boats and securing water and provisions, to carry us to Wide Bay or elsewhere. The vessel was entire when we left her, and, as she was well protected by the outer reef which she beat over, there is every probability of her holding together a considerable time-more especially as she is in a basin in the north side of the reef, and the heaviest winds here are from S. and S. E.

Debbie, from Flinders University snorkelling on the reef at West Islet. Photographer: Xanthe Rivett

We will have to check this out with the magnetometer tomorrow.

The last divers were back on Kanimbla by 6 pm.  The end of our first day at Wreck Reef and everyone is really tired, but excited by the work we had done.  People didn’t last long after dinner, not a person up past 9.30 pm!

Paul

The conditions don’t seem to be improving, so last night we made the decision to move to West Islet on Wreck Reefs. We raised the anchor after breakfast and started our trip east.

The trip across was a bit rough, so we lost a few of the crew to their bunks for part of the day.

We arrived at West Islet at 5 pm and anchored up inside the reef at a very comfortable anchorage. 

So that’s it.  Not much else to say about the day.  Tomorrow we will start our search for the Lion, a 300 tonne American whaler which went down on 4 December 1856.

Paul

Latitude: 36⁰ 54.7’S

Longitude: 122⁰ 56.2’E

Distance travelled: 106 Nm

Average speed: 4.4 knots

Well the last day has certainly been fun and exciting for the entire crew.

After lunch time on the 23^rd of January, all was well as we were sailing full and by. This of course, was the perfect time to conduct a Man-Overboard Drill.

Once the crew were notified of the drill and alarms were turned on, voyage crew all raced up to their bracing stations and got the fizz boat ready in a matter of minutes. Once the boat was deployed, the boatswain and the second officer climbed down to board the boat and zoom off to rescue the poor little buoy that we had heaved overboard. It only took a few minutes, but the buoy was soon rescued and the fizz boat was back alongside before we knew it. From the time when the alarm was raised to when the fizz boat pulled up alongside the ship and tied up, only 10 minutes had passed, which makes it quite a successful drill.

Once the drill was complete, Captain Ross had decided to have an hour or so where we send out one of the voyage crew Michelle Chan who came on board as Media from the BBC and the steward to have a chance to take some photos of the ship while under full sail. Some stunning footage and photos were taken as the weather and lighting was absolutely perfect.

After the “Photo shoot” once Michelle and the steward had boarded again and the boat was lifted and secured back into place, the Captain thought it was the perfect opportunity to wear and tack the ship. To wear, the ship turns direction with the wind behind the ship at all times, it is like gybing on a modern yacht, but tacking is a lot more complicated due to the ship having to turn all the way into the wind, adjusting all the yards and sails at just the precise moment…..you could hear the creaks of the ship as everyone held their breath and whispered encouragement’s!….yes, we did tack and why? Because we can!

In the evening, in between the two sittings of dinner, there was the celebration for Ben’s Birthday.  Our catering officer Nigel had a massive chocolate cake prepared earlier filled with jam and cream. We had all the watches gather downstairs before Ben walked down the companion way to the 20^th. All the lights were turned out and candles were lit, Ben made his way downstairs and just as he made it to the last step the entire crew burst into song and sung “Happy Birthday”. After the cheers and he cut the cake, all went back to normal and they all went back to their watches and the duties they were assigned to.

So all in all, today was one of those perfect sailing days were a lot of work was done but a lot of fun was had. And then it was time to fall back into the ships routine to sail, or rather motor during the night. There were quite a number of voyage crew looking at the sunset as word has got out in regards to the infamous green flash that was seen the night before. Alas heavy cloud settled in that prevented us seeing this phenomena but soon cleared the sky’s cleared for a spectacular viewing of the stars.

In the morning Captain Ross conducted our first lecture of the voyage and talked about the original ships history and how she sailed.

All is well.