Captains Log Date: Thursday September 11 2008 0900 hrs.

After months of intense preparation and a long voyage from Melbourne, Pelican 1 steams happily out to sea from Blue Water Marina just north of Cairns. We have five trainees on board, young men from Hope Vale who have signed up for a week of coxswains training. jazzmin, Colerige, Lionel, Neal, Joseph and Malcolm, a Hope Vale Elder, are on deck handling lines and raising sail under the direction of Raf our sailing master. Raf is on his third Hope Vale Expedition and knows many of the community members well. Indeed all our crew are veterans of multiple Hope Vale expeditions. Nick engineer/deck, Sam cook/deck and Estelle general admin/deck. Leanne is a new addition. She is here on behalf of Qld Dept of Communities and Qld Health to evaluate the project. She is the fly on the wall, the eyes and ears of sponsors, present and future, and we hope the person who will help us raise the profile and credibility of the project.

It has been raining steadily for five days. Estelle Bowen a Hope Vale Elder has been managing the community side of the project with husband Des since we started it in 2004. She told us several weeks earlier that the old people expect a period of rain before a period of relative calm during the expedition. Well they have the first bit right. The mosquitos have been breeding up over the last few days with all the rain in Cairns so it is something of a relief to be heading out to sea where they can't worry us.

We have an arrangement to provide some day sails for the community out of Cooktown on Friday. We hope to be in Cooktown tonight in time to rest up before the work begins early in the morning. By 10.30 the wind is up around 10 knots apparent on our stern so the young men raise both genoas. One stretches down our port side the other is stretched across the bow. Joseph takes a watch at the wheel and in a rising wind soon learns to handle Pelican as she surfs the following seas. She is slipping nicely through the water after her recent refit and a new coat of paint on her hull. We are soon averaging 9.5 knots in a following wind of 20 to 25 but are surfing at up to 15 knots.

Joseph at the wheel, Jazzmin looks on. Photo Garry McKechnie

Music drifts up from the central deck where Colerige is thumping out a version of Knocking on Heavens Door. The aft deck is now deserted as our hull speed is too much for the fishing lures so most of the crew shelter in the central deck from the rain which continues to fall intermittently. We arrive in Cooktown at 20.00, having made the trip from Cairns in 10 1/2 hours.

The following morning we load students and staff from Cooktown High School and two scientists from local natural resource management groups aboard for a trip out to Boulder Reef about 10 nautical miles east of Cooktown. The scientists talk about their work and involve the students in some data collection while our trainees handle most of the deck work and sail handling. The students are obviously stoked to be aboard. Sitting on the tramp between the bows, as Pelican punches into the south east chop, they literally soak up the experience. The chance to work directly with the scientists is also embraced with enthusiasm.

Students from Cooktown High collect samples and measure water quality. Truant Officer Michael looks on.
Photo Sam Proudley

Along the way Lionel hooks up a beautiful yellowfin tuna of about 8 kg’s which he brings aboard after a lengthy struggle. Pelican’s aft decks are crammed with spectators as the fish is landed, bled and filleted.

Lionel with the yellowfin. Photo Sam Proudley

Our afternoon sail is cancelled and to remove the temptations offered the young men by another night in Cooktown I decide to head north to Cape Bedford. We round the cape and drop anchor in the wide shallow bay in its lee as the light fades.

Pelican classroom at Cape Bedford. Photo Sam Proudley

Saturday Sept 13 In the morning we spend a couple of hours working on theoretical aspects of the training with the young men and then raise anchor and head south to Nob Point to reccy the site for planned day sails as part of Muni Day which is scheduled there on Sunday. Muni Day is a celebration of the life and work of Pastor Swartz the founder of Hope Vale and we are hoping to invite members of the community who will be there, to come for a sail aboard Pelican. Pastor Swartz was deposited on the beach at Nob point on September 13 1887 as a 19 years old. He became a legend in his own lifetime during 50 years of work at Hope Vale. We are hoping to land near the site of his first arrival where people will be celebrating his life. On route we practice a series of man overboard drills, tacks and gybes with the young men taking turns at all aspects of vessel and sail handling. They rise to this challenge and perform all tasks with rapidly growing skill. Very soon they will be capable of sailing Pelican without assistance.

Colerige and Lionel at work. Photo Sam Proudley

Having established that it is indeed possible (if a tad uncomfortable) to load and unload passengers at Nob Point in the prevailing conditions we head north again, back to Cape Bedford for another night at anchor. We have also arranged to pick up two of our digital story telling team, Samia and TJ who have made their way via Hope Vale to Cape Bedford to meet us.

Our team is really starting to come together. There is much excited talk and hatching of plans on Pelican’s central deck as Sam, our ace cook, delivers another stunning meal. Today the crew has grown to thirteen. Tonight it’s roast chicken and spuds in their jackets with salad and couscous followed by fresh fruit salad. After dinner Colerige sings a series of classic songs with the guitar but finishes with an absolute pearler, his own composition, about the Hope Vale Rodeo. "Ride em high ride em low, it's gonna be a special show……" As the wind howls overhead Pelican jerks at her chain in the shallow bay and I lay awake wondering about the strange weather we seem to have been having all year.

Happy Sailing

Garry McKechnie