On May 25, the Nicole set sail again, and under the command of Gu Jin, the giant ship circled Mornington Island for sailing training, and the Pride followed her.

The two ships also conducted formation navigation exercises, communications drills, and weapons test firing, which lasted from 25 June to 6 June.

In the fragment of "Zhu Beiguo's Diary", which was later handed down to later generations, people read the following text:

“...... This is our first step towards the ocean and the first step towards changing the world.

In our opinion, because of our arrival, this new world in front of us will usher in a new era of rapid change, and it is foreseeable that many people in this world will meet us, and the fate of many people will also change, and this world will become more turbulent......

...... We will eventually become the center of this new world, and it all began with this meaningful voyage......

...... Let history remember this important day, a group of pioneers who came from the old world to the new world with a beautiful vision...... It will be a voyage of profound historical significance, which will bring countless surprises to the world, and our group will knock on the door of a new world in a new way......"

On June 8, 1657, this day was designated as the "Navy Day" of the Australian Commonwealth by later generations.

On this day, the long-brewing trade operation to the sea finally began, and according to the plan, at eight o'clock in the morning, the ocean-going formation consisting of the Nicole and the Pride would set sail from the Red Pier.

At half past six in the morning, everyone in the Red House got up early in the morning, including women and children, and then everyone gathered at the Red Wharf to see off the fleet.

There was no music, no flowers, not even loud talking, the people who saw them off just stood on the trestle of the red pier, looking at the busy figure of Gu Jin and his sailing companions on the boat, while whispering, the people on the pier also greeted the people who appeared on the deck from time to time, and by the way, they made a few jokes about meat and vegetarian things, which often made the people on and off the ship laugh.

After a short time, the busy figures on Class A gradually decreased, and a whining whistle woke everyone up, and at this time, the huge anchor chain on the bow of the Nicole began to creak and move slowly, which was about to pull the anchor and set sail.

At this time, Gu Jin and the others appeared in Class A and beckoned to the people on the dock, and the people below immediately waved in response, and almost at the same time, the pride horn next to them let out a short whistle, indicating that all the preparations for departure had been completed.

At this time, the lively people on the dock suddenly became much quieter, and they watched silently as smoke gradually billowed out of the chimney of the Nicole, and then with a long roar, the huge hull slowly began to move.

And the Pride beside Nicole, a puff of smoke also spewed out of the chimney, and the hull gradually accelerated away from the dock.

"Smooth sailing!"

I don't know who shouted, so all kinds of shouts rang out in the crowd.

"Have a nice trip!"

"Safety first!"

"When you meet an indigenous girl, be calm!"

"Watch out for pirates!"

"Come back early!"

......

On the deck of the Nicole, the crew looked in the direction of the dock for a long time, where the crowd of farewell was still waving, and as the fleet gradually moved away, the shouts on the pier were gradually drowned out by the sound of the waves around them, and the waving crowd became more and more hazy.

Eventually, the red pier in the distance slowly turned into a small dot.

Soon after, the mangrove forests of Mornington Island disappeared from the sky.

At this moment, in the wheelhouse of the Nicole, under the supervision and guidance of Gu Jin, Xie Muyang, the trainee navigator on duty, used land surveys to determine the direction of the fleet for the last time, and made a note in the logbook: The Nicole and the Pride will sail east along the 16th degree 30th south latitude at a speed of eight knots.

At the same time, various training on board is still underway.

After a while, there were four students behind Gu Jin who were studying with him.

This is the unchanging rule on the ship during the training voyage, and the trainees on the Nicole have to take turns to learn various knowledge from Gu Jin, just like the medical students interning in the hospital, observing the teacher's daily work throughout the whole process.

At this time, the same was true on the Pride, and the captain Li Sanduo also had four shifts of trainees by his side.

Now, each of them has a sextant in their hands, and according to Gu Jin and Li Sanduo's requirements, each of them must be able to use the sextant independently, use the position of the sun or stars to measure their own position, and learn to rely on the ship clock and the sun shadow method to roughly estimate the current longitude and latitude.

For the sake of simplicity, Gu Jin used the Red Wharf on Mornington Island as the starting point of the prime meridian ---- the zero meridian.

What Gu Jin himself did not expect was that this standard, which was temporarily determined for the convenience of teaching, voted by an overwhelming majority at the International Geodesy Conference ---- the International Geographical Conference Meridian Conference many years later to determine the site of the Red Wharf, which had long been unrecognizable, as the starting point of the global meridian, which was later called the prime meridian of Australia.

Since then, Australian Standard Time has become the world standard time in the nautical world, so the old world Greenwich Mean Time has disappeared in this new world......

From nine o'clock in the morning the fleet accelerated, and then sailed eastward about two hundred kilometers at a speed of ten to twelve knots, and arrived at the mouth of a river on the west coast of Cape York Peninsula at seventeen o'clock that day, which on the map of the Old World was called the Gilbert River.

The river flows north into the sea along the valley of the land, and considering the draft, the Nicole is on standby, and Gu Jin sends the Pride to approach the land to observe.

Half an hour later, while exploring the shores of the estuary, the Pride spotted a large number of platypus.

So Li Sanduo named the river with clear water in his logbook the Platypus River and marked it on a blank topographic map.

From the mouth of the Platypus River to the north, the fleet sailed along the coastline all the way to the north, along the way the scenery is infinite, gradually, the mangrove forests along the coast are becoming more and more dense, standing on the first class, you can see the distant inland, where there are large areas of primitive deep forests with the undulating terrain stretching endlessly, like the endless green sea can not be seen.

In the evening, the flotilla continued its slow voyage northward, reducing its speed to an average of four knots.

At night, along the Cape York Peninsula during the dry season, the weather is clear and the moon is hazy, and the lookout on duty at the lookout post records the various situations in chronological order in the record book: ...... The fire was found, and the preliminary judgment was that it was cooking smoke...... Discover the tribal architecture of the indigenous people and much more.

During this period, more than a dozen large and small river estuaries were also recorded.

By the next morning, the fleet had sailed 100 kilometers north, and as it got closer to the equator, the rainforest grew denser and there were more signs of human activity.

The coastal fleet even approached the Weipa landing site and encountered natives fishing in canoes on the beach.

Of course, these natives must not have been able to get up close and personal, because whenever the lookout sees the canoes from afar through the binoculars, the nimble boats quickly sink into the mangrove forests on the coast and disappear without a trace.

All of this is recorded in the logbook, and the recorders wonder what kind of legend the people in the canoe will bring to their tribe......

Soon, the famous bay called Vepa Bay in the old world finally appeared on the starboard side of the fleet. It was a key landing place for the voyage.

About seven or eight rivers flow into the coves with twists and turns along the coastline, creating a complex topography of large and small peninsulas, and on one of the largest peninsulas, there is a laterite layer, which is the Vepa region, the famous bauxite region of the old world.

There is the world's largest shallow bauxite deposit, and it is the place where Cao Limei never forgets to engage in large-scale bauxite development.

On June 9, 1657, at two o'clock in the afternoon of the second day after departing from Red Wharf, the fleet finally arrived at Vepa Bay, a bay that was very famous in the mineral world of the Old World.