We woke up very early to go to school, with extremely heavy bags killing our backs, but it was very worth it.

We then got a minibus from school to Portsmouth and made our way down to Gunwharf Quays. Here, we met our First Mate Rachel who we then introduced ourselves to.

Then we made our way down to the boat called Challenger 3 (Sarah). Here, we met the rest of the team. We got introduced to our Skipper, Amy and our Watch Leaders Riley and Chris. We chose our bunks before getting to know all the parts of the boat.

Shortly after, we set off on our voyage, using the engine, to our first stop, Cowes, the Isle of Wight (Chris’ home).

After that, we went to the showers before having a tasty meal cooked by the lovely, professional, too good chefs (Port watch). We then ate fajitas for dinner and then went to sleep.

Bright and early, we got up and set the deck up, preparing for a smooth day of sailing. We set sail at around 9:00. We used the motor for a while, until we got to wind that was bearable, and lifted the sails!

We saw many forts on the way, and learnt how they served in the war. By then, the sails did the work of bringing us to Poole, which had the best showers. Prepping the sails was hard work, with winches, ropes, and raw manpower necessary to get them up and billowing. The sails are durable things, having gone round the world before.

During the journey we saw a plethora of magnificent sights; for example, the iconic Needles—which are three tall, white rocks. After that we saw Sandbanks: a road with very large houses which, for some absurd reason, are all numbered ‘1’. Then we moored at Poole.

We concluded the day with a quiz! And then started the Murder on the Boat. The paranoia will last us the rest of the week, let’s see how many of us die, and who comes out on on top. The boat will now sleep.

At approximately 06:45, most of us children got up to pray. After finishing our prayers, we prepared for a breakfast on-the-go due to the fact that we had to be in Lymington by 13:00. If not, the ship wouldn’t have made it into the marina until 20:00 due to the tide being too low for the boat.

Another kill, Ayaan decided to hold Almaan’s bowl in the snake pit whilst eating breakfast in the snake pit. We then finished eating breakfast and carried on our life-changing adventure to Lymington.

We did not use the sails as there was not much wind. Because of this, we decided to get the Starboard spinnaker pole out and climb up it. We also saw Sandbanks again and some colourful sand.

Khalid went up to the spinnaker pole in a mind blowing nine seconds, others tried their best grabbing this once-in -a-lifetime opportunity, but nine seconds was still the record.

Later on, we got introduced to the world of navigation. Learning about the colours of buoys and what they mean, still no details on flashes or anything detailed.

We then arrived at Lymington and ate lunch, ravioli, tomato sauce and cheese. When we arrived, we climbed the mast, some got pulled up and some climbed up, obviously with harnesses and helmets. We all saw the amazing view in Lymington.

Amy got some very… interesting kills, two actually, mainly death traps disguised as challenges. We ate dinner, which was sausage and mash with onion gravy, prepared by the pro chefs again (Port side). We played go fish, and to finish the day off we all got together and played spoons. In a matter of minutes everyone was asleep.

Hello Starboard side, may you be ever so kind and write the blog pretty please with two cherries on top…

Yes , we may , so today we started our day off with breakfast as usual, and then the Port side was on clean-up duty. While they were cleaning, we put up the sail getting ready to depart from Lymington.

After clean up, we learnt how to navigate and learnt what the different cardinals are and who has priority over who when two different boats come across each other.

Then, we started our voyage, independently, from Lymington to Gunwharf Quays and Riley made us lunch, which was baguettes and it was actually very tasty!