I cried as we left the Police Station in Milton Keynes and headed towards Portsmouth to sail the seven seas.

We arrived 7 hours later and the weather was terrible. We waved goodbye to the chief constable, but not before a long walk in the rain carrying what felt like bricks in my bag, when it was just a bunch of clothes.

We were introduced to the team on the boat, they were Captain Matt, Kitty, Mark and Genevive and the houseboat cat…that no one has seen yet!!!

We climbed on board and got a tour of the whole area including our bedrooms. It was not what we expected, but when I laid on the bed it was very comfy.

Then we sat around the big table and had biscuits. The crew told us what we were doing during the day today.

Everyone was given a  lifejacket and a waterproof suit, then told to head on to the top deck.

Splashed in the face and pinched by the rain – this was before we even left the docks!

Everyone was given a role, some were told to hold ropes, some were told to pull in the buoys. We all had a job to do.

Some students were feeling sick before we went into the fresh air, then all we could think about was the wide-open ocean and getting out on the sea.

As we set sail the sun came out and the wind dropped, it was so peaceful. Then as we got further towards our destination the wind and rain came back…this time 10x worse. We were soaking wet, but no one gave up. We continued all the way everyone taking on a job.

When we docked up, we were split into two teams. The cooks and the cleaners. One group stayed above deck with Miss Ruffles and the other group went below deck to cook with Mr Ball.

Mr Ball cried as Connor cut up the onions, Amber cut up 1000 pieces of chicken, Siobhan took on the role of Head Chef and washer upper. We were helped by Oliver, Ace and Matt with cutting the vegetables.

We all sat down and made our very own homemade fajitas, with seasoned and plain chicken, cheese, lettuce, cucumbers, sour cream, BBQ, salsa, guacamole, peppers and onions. This was a lovely meal. AND a colin the caterpillar cake to wash it down with…singing happy birthday to Siobhan.

Siobhan has had the best birthday of her life.

May the adventurous week begin.

Day 2 began with the most horrendous music to wake up to. I have been threatened with Taylor Swift tomorrow which would be even worse!

The breakfast we had did make up for the music though as we had hot croissants – with peanut butter, jam or Nutella, cereal and juice to choose from.

We briefed by Matt and team on what we would do during the day, the girls however took 20 minutes to get ready which made it way longer than we needed to. When we went on deck, we had to get our lifejackets and wet suits on, to prepare for another day at sea.

Kitty and Genevive taught us how to tie knots, this was used later in the day when we had to tie the fenders to the side of the boat. Then we had to prepare the sails for the trip ahead.

It was our duties time to prepare the lunches. This happened while Matt the terrible driver was tilting the boat to 45 degrees, it felt like a terrible roller coaster.

Daisy, Sam and I were in the kitchen preparing lunch, Daisy was cutting the cucumber, I was cutting the lettuce and tomatoes and Sam cutting the chicken. As Matt turned the wheel the cucumbers along with the board and bowl went sliding all the way to the other side of the table, if it wasn’t for Daisy’s spider reflexes to grab the bowl lunch would have been ruined!

After Lunch half the team didn’t feel okay, even Miss Ruffles was sick! This meant that half of us had to work even harder than before.

We  had to work really hard with winching in and using a lot of our strength to keep the poles stable and the sails secure.

Connor did have a little bit of trouble with one of the fenders. As we were coming to dock, Connor was given the task of picking up one of the fenders and tying it to the side of the ship.

Unfortunately, the wind picked up, and the fender flew out of Connors grip! It fell into the shallow waters meaning we had to leave it behind…

Luckily our Stanton bury friends picked up a floating Fender when they were coming into dock! We have now named the lucky fender ‘ Connor’, we will add a picture at the end of the week!

When we docked, we all went for a walk together, to the moors of Lymington. We took the warmest showers

Surprisingly, we were allowed to call the teachers their real names, so if they wasn’t listening to their Mr/Mrs it was funny to see them immediately react to their first names!

We finished the night by being introduced to the game ‘Boat Murder’ where one at a time we will be killed off, we also played catch the squish, where there was a banana that two people had to grab.

The rules where, 5 people per team, you needed to have 2 people with their eyes open to look at the cards that would get laid out. If the eyes open person saw any red card, they will squeeze the next persons hand down the line.

The person at the very end had to grab the banana and in that case their team won a point! Ollie, amber, Siobhan, conner and their group leader won.

So anyways, To be continued in tomorrow’s Blog…

Last night we went to bed extra early to save electricity by not having the lights on. This morning it was freezing but Matt said we couldn’t have the heating on because it would cause pollution and that we should eat cold cereal to warm us up. Ok ok the truth is we had bacon sandwiches

In the morning Mr. Ball chose a song to wake everyone up…..  that song was “who let the dogs out.” Uh anyways. We had bacon and egg rolls for breakfasts, and for those picky eaters, there where croissants And cereal.

After we cleaned the deck, we were allowed to climb the mast!

The mast is the large pole that halts the sail up. Ollie was the first to start on the mast, and he went all the way to the top! So did Daisy and Siobhan. However Mr ball felt like he was at the top (He was close. Trust.)  Conner went halfway too.

We all had an opportunity to go shopping in Lymington. Some of us bought fidget toys and a blue monkey…..

Today, we had jacket potatoes for lunch. We had beans, cheese, leftover Bolognese meat, and bacon slices. No food waste on Challenger 2! Luckily it wasn’t like yesterday, and we got to make lunch when the boat was still docked up. however, everyone ate upstairs on the boat as it sailed back to Cowes. Ace steered off the dock from Lymington and Nicola steered half way on sea, and Daisy steered into the dock from mid sea.

After lunch we worked in our teams to plan our project, we are going to design a meal plan for others coming on Tall ships and Daisy and Ollie got the chance to become watch leaders to put up the small sail. We also had to choose a cake to bake for tomorrow.

We returned to Cowes on the Isle of Wight and we had a second opportunity to have a shower in the marina, would you believe it Sam and Arshin took 20 minutes longer than Daisy and Nicola in the shower.

When we returned from the shower, we had a lovely dinner of Chicken Curry and played another new game. On this boat there seems to be plenty of murders, because the pirates in the game killed off many crew members……the best Pirate in the game who was undetected as Arshin.

Day 4 began with Ace waking up first, then Daisy, then Nicola and us playing the Jungle book Music outside the boys’ room to wake them up.

Daisy (tall ships newly elected chef) and Kitty made pancakes for all on board, breakfast was a huge success ( although Daisy made a fantastic dive to prevent a pancake falling on the floor)

The weather was not forecast to be great for sailing today, but this did not stop team Port and team Starboard from keeping busy and working together as part of a team throughout the day.

There has been a day of challenges and project work completed.

Challenge 1 – buying a gift for their watch leader.

The teams were given the criteria of the task, from Matt the Skipper.

• They could not spend more than £5
• They had to get receipts for all of their purchases
• They would be scored on how much their watch leader liked their gift
• There would be a score for the humour behind the gift
• There would need to be a story and thought process for the purchases.

We walked to Cowes high street and started to gather our ideas for our watch leaders. We visited some small local shops and charity shops until our gifts were bought. There was a race by one team to get back on time (mainly because Ace and Daisy wanted to run back to get a gift and ran 250 metres past the shop they were heading too)

The story for team Starboard about their gifts were centred around duct tape so that their watch leader could put on their mouths when they were talking and not listening and a speaker and knot tying game. (no children had their mouths duck taped during this episode… The Editor).

The story from team Port was centred around saving energy so Kitty received a small lantern so lights could be turned off, a cat toy (for the kitty) and a mug for her Ladyship (the lady of the ship)

Needless to say, both teams achieved the goal and it was close but team Starboard won.

When we were back on board both teams continued with their meal plan project that they have been working on through the week. Today was the presentation presented to Matt (Skipper) and Mark (Mate) Both teams had to complete a weekly meal that caters for 15 people aboard the ship, considering the choice of menu, the budget, the sustainability the plan and the impact on the environment. Team Port decided to choose vegetarian menus that required less refrigeration, more bulk buying and batch cooking as well as introducing some pedal power to generate electricity on board. This have been written up and sent to Tall Ships to compete against our other schools.

We also had a team bake off competition and both teams made edible cakes that were judged with lots and lots and lots and lots and if it has not been emphasised enough lots of cake toppings. Designing the cakes was an entertaining job and makes me want to do it more when I’m home so I can eat lots and lots more cake.

We had the best lunch of the week so far, which was a tortellini pasta with grated cheese and a tomato-based sauce on top!

A walk along the beach, where all took selfies and pictures of the ocean. We also spotted a seal and got some ice creams that were flavoured with Bischoff and bubble gum. Then the wind picked up and nearly blew the ice cream out of hands! Some of us found the prettiest seashells on the beach.

A few murders have also been successfully completed today; with Emma the mass murderer finally being given a taste of her own medicine by being murdered by Siobhan in the sail room with the apple.  I fear more murders may happen again before bedtime, especially as we are likely to play the pirates game again before bed……..

Lets see who survives to day 5 – our final day

Signed Sam, Connor, Siobhan and Nicola