Since I read a comic called “ONE PIECE”, it has been my dream to drive a ship. When I got this project week, I was pretty sure I was going to have a blast. In the planning phase, some boys talked about how we were going to colonize France, “Boys be ambitious!” That made me realize that this experience is a way of escaping from the education: doing whatever you are supposed to do and is a way to be ambitious and active in a true sense not a classroom.

And the dream came true today!!

Going to bed at 4am (maybe I was too excited) and waking up at 6:30, spending 4 hours on the van to get to Portsmouth, I was already tired when I was getting on the ship. But my tiredness flew away with the wind when we started our voyage. While my school life has been hard due to final exams coming, the ship represented my adventure and hope. I felt much more positive doing new stuffs though to start with it was just tying ropes, but then I got to realise my dream and drive the boat.

Having three boys from the same dormitory house, I could spend time as if it is my house. But as it is actually a boat, we had to cook in a small kitchen and I am not as familiar as the kitchen in the house, that made cooking hard but bonded us much harder!

Hopefully, we can colonize France tomorrow and complete the boys’ ambitions.

By Chihiro

We were actually sailing!

Wicked init if u do not know what I mean.

Today we had crumpets for breakfast, they were really GOOD, we had so many options, and then our journey started!!!!!!. We learnt about the different emergency possibilities when sailing. Then we practiced the Man Over Board (MOB) procedures, one with a victim and a hero, and the other one with the blue triangle rescue net.

We started the journey from Cowes in the direction to Yarmouth, we set our three sails (Mainsail, Staysail and the Yankee sail), which was a teamwork effort, we went through a lot active and physical movement. A few people felt sick (including me (Yalid), which was a bit of a complicated moment for the crew, however, we also managed to keep going, and we made it work. IT WAS AMAZING, everything is being such an incredible experience.

We (the young people) are from many different countries, including Ecuador, Argentina, Wales, Italy, China, Romania, Czech Republic and Rwanda, we have not really talk that much before even being in the same campus (UWC Atlantic), but this is an experience where not only we are learning to sail (supported by brilliant people) but also we are getting to know each other and how to work together in order to have as much as we can from this adventure.

We have mash potato and sausages for dinner, and veggie sausages!!! (bless), because we have one only vegetarian on the boat, I wonder who. Then we had time to explore Yarmouth, a small, quiet but beautiful town, we watched an amazing sunset, it genuinely looked like a movie, this is definitely something that we all have not experienced before but something that we are looking forward to complete and enjoy 😀 (even if we get sick, let’s say is our mark in the boat).

By Yalid

Mast climbing

This one was my favourite activity of today, we all managed to climb the Mast of the boat! Going up there has not been really easy but the view up there was worth everything.

In turn everyone climbed the must, and each time 4 different people were pulling the rope, a very efficient workout for our arms!

Cornish pasty and beans

This is one of the best British dishes I’ve ever had, It had meat, potato, and a bit of carrots in it. It was amazing also because we were really hungry, overall, I really advise it!

Sailing in high seas

Everyone said that this has been the most difficult thing to do today, because we had to deal with high waves, but with teamwork and perseverance, we managed to arrive at the destination

More food tortillas

And finally, after a lot of energy spent dealing with the waves, we had dinner or as we call it here tea! We had tortillas, the famous Mexican dish, and it was definitely delicious

Today we improved our teamwork skills, how to work together and communicate better, helping each other in the different tasks for example when we had to do the winch or even climbing the mast.

While waiting for the tight to sail we went to clean a beach for around an hour

By Luisa

Day 4 From Poole back to Cowes.

Waking up at 7:30 as usual then heading for breakfast 30 minutes later; we had scrambled eggs and toasties. Then we started preparing the boat to leave quite earlier than other days.

Today was a little bit different because we have put all the three sails up: the Mainsail, the Yankee 3 and the Storm Staysail. We sailed for a long time and whilst doing this we did some works around which gave us time to meditate, overthink and overall enjoy the ocean. Surprisingly the ocean water was cleaner blue than all other days we have passed here which was amazing to look at. We also had the stormy day that made the boat to tilt on one side for long time and a little bit of the water being washed into the boat. As the result we had to tack the boat many times changing the tilted sides which made the clean-up for dinner more fun but challenging<3.

The special aim of the day was racing with a boat called Rona II (they didn’t know we were racing them) that started the journey from Poole an hour before us and we were all going to the same direction. Yah, we made it to Cowes before them! We beat them😊! And another thing is that no one puked☹ today even though some of us felt sick or whatever.

We arrived at Cowes earlier at 4 o’clock which gave us the break time to explore around Cowes town where we have got some cheap supermarkets to go to and had fun buying some groceries. I am now looking forward to the best but last☹ night with some fun games and for tomorrow with a lot of work which I hope will be not a lot😊😊😊. Hey, I am Gregor and I am a great Pirate!!

Thank you!                                            谢谢(Xièxiè!)

Murakoze!                                            Danke!

Gracias!

ありがとう(Arigatō!)

Děkuju!

Grazie!

Diolch!

By Angeline