Day 14
Saturday 7 October
Andrew, Hong and Sandy depart for the early Cooktown –Cairns flight. The two ANZ men have had an inspirational week and have slotted into the whole team, both Bama and Wangarr well. Natalie and Aurora decide to sail with Pelican down to Cairns on Sunday morning.
Brieanna, Jedda, Tyreece & Jebbette on the final day sail
10.15am and there’s a bunch of excited young Bama kids exploring all over Pelican’s decks in anticipation of a three-hour gentle sail down the Endeavour River. Towards the end of the sail, Ini decides to give the passengers a bit of excitement and with the kids lined up on the front of Pelican, he sails out through the Endeavour River leads to the open sea. As the boat plunges into the waves, the sea sprays the kids who yell and scream, clearly loving the excitement of it all. What a great way to end the Hope Vale 2006 sailing adventures of the good ship Pelican!
The afternoon is spent debriefing the whole project with the crew, Nat and I. We examine what we did well and what we can improve for the Pelican operation and the project itself. Many ideas are put forward as a bit of a brainstorm of how to improve or change the project for next year. Overall we feel it’s been a highly successful two weeks.
Young Estelle kept a record of everyone who came onboard. We took 152 people sailing on 7 day sails, plus 85 people including the crew to camp on Lizard Island.
20 Bama kids and adults on our last day of the 2006 project.
One of the major achievements is that the ANZ bank, having opened it’s new branch in Cooktown in August this year, is keen to work with the Hope Vale Council and individuals to see if they can assist in developing opportunities that lead to sustainable jobs. There are no firm arrangements at this early stage but the conversations have begun and there is a commitment to keep working on them. The Lizard Island Resort is going to keep up the communication with Lee Robinson, the Hope Vale CEO to open opportunities for two Bama youngsters to be employed there. These are amongst many other benefits that have come out of this year’s project.
Tomorrow Pelican will sail down to Cairns against the ever-present south easterlies. After cleaning the boat out, the crew will head home. Home for Ini and his son JJ is a dinghy ride across Trinity Inlet to his own boat anchored in Cairns. Garry will spend a week getting ready before sailing Pelican with Lara and young Finnley plus friends down to Melbourne.
We are organising a project called Two Bays. This is an environmental education project operating in Port Phillip and Westernport Bays in the Melbourne area. So watch this space if you want to read about this project when it runs Dec 2006/Jan 2007.
For me I fly home to my family in Melbourne on Monday. I feel we have done a sensational job this year, as a team. As always it’s a privilege to work with and learn from Elders such as Des and Estelle Bowen and to spend quality time with these communal Bama people. Plans are already afoot to have their daughter Julianne come and visit us again in Melbourne and perhaps do voluntary work at the bio-farm on French Island and for various Bama boys to join Pelican at some stage of Pelican’s journey back down south.
Pelican sails into Cape Flattery after supporting the turtle tagging.
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog. I’d be amazed if you’ve read every word as it’s lengthy but I hope you’ve enjoyed it and it has offered an insight into this amazing project.
A huge thank you to our sponsors the ANZ bank for not only funding this for the second year but also for becoming more involved with the project.
Pelican Expeditions would like to thank the following people and organizations for their support:
• Hope Vale Council for offering CDEP workers to assist all the way through the project, plus the use of many resources –vehicles, fuel, food, admin etc
• Michael Hogan representing the Government Champion for the Dept of Premier and Cabinet for providing a Toyota Troop Carrier for the project
• Queensland Health for providing Elaine, Lindy and Kirsty to assist with provisioning the camp with healthy food and cooking it
• Sam Dibella for linking in the turtle tagging project to the Hope Vale project in his own free time
• Balkanu for providing food, fuel and admin services
• The Aboriginal Corporation-Ambill-mungku-gnarra for food and fuel
• The Community Police as part of the State Police for providing Renni, the Community Policeman at Lizard Island
• Cape Flattery Sand Mine for providing us with a Loader vehicle to help us out whenever we got stuck in sand!
• Rex at Cook’s Landing Kiosk wharf for giving us a reduced rate on mooring fees.
• Eric Deeral jnr for all his driving support
• Margo Kingston for her enthusiastic participation and support of the project
• Sandy Scheltema - again for her fine photography and coming up to the project in her own holiday time
• Dr Lyal Cross from the Lizard Island Research station for coming on his own time to do a presentation to the Hope Vale youngsters
• And finally to Des and Estelle for the incredible amount of work Des put in during the project and the huge amount of energy Estelle put into organise and run this from the Hope Vale side of the project.
Peter Malcolm
Project Leader
Sunday 8 Oct 2006
Andrew, Hong and Sandy depart for the early Cooktown –Cairns flight. The two ANZ men have had an inspirational week and have slotted into the whole team, both Bama and Wangarr well. Natalie and Aurora decide to sail with Pelican down to Cairns on Sunday morning.
Brieanna, Jedda, Tyreece & Jebbette on the final day sail
The afternoon is spent debriefing the whole project with the crew, Nat and I. We examine what we did well and what we can improve for the Pelican operation and the project itself. Many ideas are put forward as a bit of a brainstorm of how to improve or change the project for next year. Overall we feel it’s been a highly successful two weeks.
Young Estelle kept a record of everyone who came onboard. We took 152 people sailing on 7 day sails, plus 85 people including the crew to camp on Lizard Island.
20 Bama kids and adults on our last day of the 2006 project.
Tomorrow Pelican will sail down to Cairns against the ever-present south easterlies. After cleaning the boat out, the crew will head home. Home for Ini and his son JJ is a dinghy ride across Trinity Inlet to his own boat anchored in Cairns. Garry will spend a week getting ready before sailing Pelican with Lara and young Finnley plus friends down to Melbourne.
We are organising a project called Two Bays. This is an environmental education project operating in Port Phillip and Westernport Bays in the Melbourne area. So watch this space if you want to read about this project when it runs Dec 2006/Jan 2007.
For me I fly home to my family in Melbourne on Monday. I feel we have done a sensational job this year, as a team. As always it’s a privilege to work with and learn from Elders such as Des and Estelle Bowen and to spend quality time with these communal Bama people. Plans are already afoot to have their daughter Julianne come and visit us again in Melbourne and perhaps do voluntary work at the bio-farm on French Island and for various Bama boys to join Pelican at some stage of Pelican’s journey back down south.
Pelican sails into Cape Flattery after supporting the turtle tagging.
A huge thank you to our sponsors the ANZ bank for not only funding this for the second year but also for becoming more involved with the project.
Pelican Expeditions would like to thank the following people and organizations for their support:
• Hope Vale Council for offering CDEP workers to assist all the way through the project, plus the use of many resources –vehicles, fuel, food, admin etc
• Michael Hogan representing the Government Champion for the Dept of Premier and Cabinet for providing a Toyota Troop Carrier for the project
• Queensland Health for providing Elaine, Lindy and Kirsty to assist with provisioning the camp with healthy food and cooking it
• Sam Dibella for linking in the turtle tagging project to the Hope Vale project in his own free time
• Balkanu for providing food, fuel and admin services
• The Aboriginal Corporation-Ambill-mungku-gnarra for food and fuel
• The Community Police as part of the State Police for providing Renni, the Community Policeman at Lizard Island
• Cape Flattery Sand Mine for providing us with a Loader vehicle to help us out whenever we got stuck in sand!
• Rex at Cook’s Landing Kiosk wharf for giving us a reduced rate on mooring fees.
• Eric Deeral jnr for all his driving support
• Margo Kingston for her enthusiastic participation and support of the project
• Sandy Scheltema - again for her fine photography and coming up to the project in her own holiday time
• Dr Lyal Cross from the Lizard Island Research station for coming on his own time to do a presentation to the Hope Vale youngsters
• And finally to Des and Estelle for the incredible amount of work Des put in during the project and the huge amount of energy Estelle put into organise and run this from the Hope Vale side of the project.
Peter Malcolm
Project Leader
Sunday 8 Oct 2006
