During high school I was always very outdoorsy, I always enjoyed the camping trips we were sent on in the early years of high school and so after year 9 when Outdoor Ed. was no longer compulsory I still participated in voluntary trips. Memorable ones include rockclimbing at Mt Arapilies in Victoria & a six day bushwalk around Wilsons Promontory National Park. 

me at Wilsons PromontoryDue to the fact that I was well known to the Outdoor Ed. teaches and I assume quite well liked by them, I was one of 5 students they approached about spending 10 days on a Sail Training Ship. With a limited number of voyages each year and only 36 berths on each trip, berths were allocated to Victorian schools by a ballot method, it was the first time our school had received an offer so the Outdoor Ed. teachers were pretty excited. As it turned out though the other 4 students were not, they turned down the offer which worked out well for me because that meant I had no competition for the berth, and after watching the promotional videotape and looking at the brochure I was positive I wanted that berth.

The only obstacle I now faced was money, the cost of the voyage was $1000.00 a sum my parents could not possibly afford. So with the OUtdoor Ed. teachers we set about a fundraising plan by means of a number of sausage sizzles (BBQ's) at school.  With $200.00 of my own money and about $300.00 from the sausage sizzles I was still $500.00 short and my voyage date was rapidly approaching, somehow though I still made it there. At the time I naively had no idea how it had been arranged but in hindsight I believe one or both of the Outdoor Ed. teachers must have paid the rest out of their own pockets. So anyway I got to sail for 10 days around Port Phillip Bay on the Alma Doepel, an authentic, restored 3 masted Topsail Schooner, and it was wonderful ... except for the first 3 days where I almost nearly won the "chunderthon" award due to my extreme seasickness. Aside from the fact that until this day I can't so much as go on a playground swing without getting nauseous my trip on Alma gave rise to a passion for Sailing Ships, Ships & boats in general that has not lessened in the 14 years since I walked on her decks. I've collected books & models, I'm slowly working through a beautiful cross-stitch and now I have created this website. Originally this started off as a single page on my regular website and then it became a few pages but with so many pics to look at it was wreaking havoc with bandwidth so I decided to finally give Alma a site of her own.

All the people who sailed on my Voyage including the 
leading hands & the permanent crew.
(I'm in the second row, to the right of the girl with the red collar)

If you want to know more about me and my other hobbies besides ships you can check out my Homepage by clicking either this link 
- Belinda's Homepage
or the one under "my other sites" on the left hand menu.

©Belinda Jenkins 2004
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