19 May - What Would Captain Cook Do?

0600 position 13-54S 167-07W. Day's run 117 miles

This has been a tough day first trying to figure out what is wrong with
the autopilot and now the refrigerator is acting up. The refrigerator
has stopped working and I'm getting three different fault codes indicated
low voltage, overcharge, and I don't know what. I've checked at the unit
when it is trying to run and voltage is fine. I have never added freon
to the unit so it can't be overcharged. Sigh. I've sent an email to
the manufacturer for help. In the meantime, we are losing what is left
of our refrigerated food. That is not too big a deal though because we
had planned for it to be almost all used up when we arrived in Tonga
anyway.

I did discover a poor wiring connection (that I had originally installed)
for the autopilot behind the main panel. It actually fell off as I was
messing around back there. I'm not even sure if I touched it. I repaired
the connection so hopefully that was the problem with the autopilot,
although we are still seeing voltage drops when the actuator turns the
rudder.

I figure if my hero Captain Cook can work through these kinds of issues
then so can I.

I was in kind of a fog all day. I was chasing down these electrical
problems during my morning off watch and didn't get but thirty minutes
sleep. Rocky was kind to me tonight though. He let me sleep an extra
hour and a half past the end of his watch to catch up. Any of you who
have ever been to sea know what a big deal that is. He had been on watch
six hours already, was supposed to be off at midnight, and stayed up until
0130 when I woke up on my own. What a guy.

There was a low pressure system that passed through Tonga today moving
east to the south of us. It has interrupted the normal trade wind flow
and we have seen lighter winds today. We were still running wing and wing
all day, but had to heat it up to the north to keep from slatting
excessively. Very pleasant sailing. Looks like it may be light winds all
the way in to Niuatoputapu.

We played cribbage again today and I lost again, but it was close this
time.

Rocky has been seeing the moonrise lately during his early evening watch.
Moonrise at sea can be spectacular and also frightening if you don't know
it's coming. Thirty seven years ago I was in this same part of the ocean
aboard Bravura on a passage from Fanning Island to Western Samoa. There
was no wind so we were under power. I was on watch one pitch black night
with Gary, and we were taking turns driving while the other dozed on the
floor of the cockpit. At about 0300 Gary woke me shouting at the top of
his lungs, "They are running us down! We are being run down by a ship!"

I lept up to see what all the excitement was about, and there, directly
behind us, was the moon peeking through some gaps in the clouds. Gary had
seen it first as just a speck of light as it peeked over the horizon, and
assumed it was a ship. But the light grew quickly in size and intensity
until Gary was convinced that disaster was imminent. I knew immediately
that it was the moon because I had made the same mistake as a kid, and you
only make that mistake once. "That's not a ship, you moron, that's the
moon", I said, repeating verbatim the words a good friend had used with me
years earlier.