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LPHS Spirit of NZ Trophy Voyage
 
Photo by Supplied

LPHS Spirit of NZ Trophy Voyage

Alice Houston-Page and Henry Eden-Mann —

The Logan Park Spirit of NZ team are feeling refreshed after spending 5 days sailing around the beautiful Islands in the Hauraki Gulf during November.

On the boat, we were woken each morning at 6:30 and we plunged into the water before breakfast. We had no cell phones and no social media, and felt the fresh sea air instead. Throughout the week on the boat we had the most amazing experience and lived a completely different, and wonderful, lifestyle.

We met the King and Queen of the Netherlands, hoisted up the sails whilst yelling “2, 6, heave!”, stopped off at islands and played beach games, made sandcastles, rowed (rather unsuccessfully, but we tried our best), and climbed up the rigging and felt the fresh air from up high. We spent 2 hours on ‘night watch’ in the middle of the night, created a hilarious team chant, made a striking and creative team flag, spotted jellyfish, did a boating version of singstar, did knot-tying, played four-way-tug-of-war, got sunburnt and had an incredible time! Even more importantly, we made 30 new friends from other schools around New Zealand, and formed strong bonds with the crew on the boat and with each other.

We are so grateful to have had this unforgettable experience. Thanks so much to The Spirit of Adventure Trust for creating this opportunity, and to Mr Sewell for being a great teacher to travel with, and for doing a flawless backflip! We met amazing people on this voyage, and had more fun than we could have even imagined!