Day 7: Leaving Cairns
September 28th, 2005

We spent the morning rushing around taking care of last minute chores. There's a never-ending supply of those on a ship ready to head out to sea. We pulled out from our dock around 2:30pm, feuled up, and left port for a little practice run.

The captain wanted us to get acquanted with the ship before we actually headed out into open seas, so we sailed back and forth in the shipping channel to practice some basic sailing maneuvers and work the sails. At sunset, we anchored in the channel, off near the mangrove forests. I kept an eye out for salt-water crocodiles, but I didn't see any. This was our first night sleeping on the boat in "normal" conditions. Which means the boat rocked quite a bit. I slept soundly none-the-less.

Above: Learning the Sails
Right: Learning the Ropes