Following our journey from Bucks to Portsmouth, our trip began. We got onto the challenger, dropped off our bags and headed onto the deck for our briefings. After this, we got our waterproof, prepared the boat to set sail. On our journey from Portsmouth to Cowes, we learnt how to tie many different knots, learned how to put up/put down the stay sail, how to/when to tack and what we need to do in the snake pit. The weather was calm and there was a cool breeze. Once we arrived at Cowes, we made sure the boat was ship shape for the evening and finished cooking dinner. We had chilli and nachos, and it was a great meal to finish the day to. We shared the cooking and washing up responsibilities, played some games and headed to bed for 22:00 excited for what the day would look like tomorrow.

For the second day of the voyage, we left Portsmouth to pursue Poole harbour. On our way to the harbour town, we were instructed to follow the man overboard protocol. The protocol was extremely interesting to take part in for it showed the level of safety in which was followed on board the ship. For lunch we ate the finest chicken goujons coated in a delectable breadcrumb which were most lovely. Unfortunately, some of us are not wont to living on a sea vessel and the motion in the ocean unfortunately caused nausea amongst a fair few. After docking in Poole Town, we entered the settlement to discover a charming market town with lovely local businesses. After returning to our vessel, we ate only the best fish combined with the most delectable of chips. In the evening we were educated on sea charts by the highly informative crew, which was fascinating.​

Today was the third day of our voyage and turned out to be many of our favourite days overall. We started the day with a trip into Poole, getting to see the local area to where we sailed. After this, we practiced a man overboard exercise, and one of the crew members was lowered over the side of the boat to save a fender to practice the procedure. After getting harnessed in, we got to climb up the 97ft mast of the Challenger and this was the highlight of the trip for many of us. The view of Poole and towards Brownsea Island was unreal, and it will never be forgotten. We took a morning to learn more around the Challenger, as we were unable to dock in Yarmouth until after 19:00, so would have to tie to a buoy nearby and wait for this time. Once we left Poole and began our travels to Yarmouth, the wind picked up and we got well on our way. This was a great experience for all of us because, meant we picked up speed and got to sit on the edge of port side as the boat was travelling because of the conditions we were traveling in. We arrived outside of the harbour at around 16:00, made dinner and once 19:00 came around, we travelled the short distance into Yarmouth Harbour. In the evening, we played a brilliant card game that had everyone enjoying themselves, and headed off to bed at 22:00, ready to travel back to Portsmouth tomorrow.​

Travelled from Yarmouth to Portsmouth. Sailing was smooooth. We had to rig and derig the sail by ourselves which was interesting to see just how manipulatable the average human mind is. We decided to anchor and eat dinner midway towards Portsmouth, unfortunately the sun had decided to enter low power mode and convert into its moon form. Which was quite annoying as we were forced to take part in darkness navigation. There were no stars in the sky, but that’s because stars aren’t real and were set up via the government to hypnotise the public into believing that the gnomes aren’t real. Yarmouth was a nice town. We took a picture upon the gribble seat, which is real, I sat on it. I think I did. What is a gribble, are they the evolved alien life form which visited us thousands of years ago? Am I a gribble? Who knows? Oh well, darkness navigation was cooool, we had to follow a compass coordinate which was interesting and good fun. It was bizarre following a compass bearing as you had to trust that the calculations made in the cabin and sail towards the big buoy things with lights, I don’t know what the big buoys are used for, probably as a beacon to summon further gribbles onto our planet. But yes, coordinates are interesting especially considering the earth is flat. If a fifth blog is not entered assume the crew, mate and skipper are government agents and I have been killed by them. One day the truth will be out there, one day.  Goodbye, for now?

NEWS UPDATE

Police and marine authorities are still investigating the mysterious disappearance of Challenger 1. Eyewitnesses described a bright beam of light from the sky accompanied by a strange harmonic noise. Authorities are confused, but say it definitely was not aliens.