Cruising

0800 Position 18-43S 174-02W. At anchor of Nuku, the King's Favorite Island, Vava'u, Tonga

Van Diemen had a couple of Australian visitors yesterday from the other cruising boats. First Adrian from a French built hard chined aluminum sloop came by. He had expressed an interest in seeing Van Diemen the night before at the Tongan Feast. Adrian bought his boat on the coast of Australia from a Frenchman who "walked away from it". The previous owner left everything behind, including clothing. "We are still wearing his foul weather gear, and his shorts fit me too!" Adrian has two other partners in the boat, so that means there are three skippers aboard. "It is working out so far," he claimed.

Our second visitor was Bruce from "Haven", a forty foot fiberglass sloop. Bruce and I had discussed cruising in Fiji's Lau Group during the Tongan Feast. We are looking for information about the islands in anticipation of going there. Bruce hadn't been to the Laus either, but he had some cruising guidance for the area on a thumb drive and brought it over for me to download. Bruce and his wife are heading west for home and have almost completed a multi-year circumnavigation. We will likely bump into them somewhere in Fiji.

By mid day all the other cruising boats had departed, and it was time for us to go too. We powered a couple of miles east to Nuku, reputed to be the Tongan King's favorite island, and anchored.

They say that "cruising" is "working on your boat in exotic locations". This cruise of the Van Diemen has been surprisingly non-compliant with that definition until yesterday afternoon. We noticed that the generator was bogging down during the short hop to Nuku. Rob figured it was being starved of fuel and changed the generator's fuel filter after we anchored. Changing the filter appeared to solve the bogging problem but after starting the generator I noticed that the refer and freezer weren't cycling on as they normally do. Rob has been digging through the guts of the boat ever since trying to figure out why. Things are so desperate this morning that we even dug out the manuals. In the mean time, the temperature in the ice box and freezer continue to creep up threatening to spoil everything inside them.

We can't see the connection between the problems with the generator and the problems with the refrigerator and freezer, but coincidences like this are rare. We also can't figure out why both the freezer and refrigerator have failed. They are two stand alone systems. Hmmm. Stay tuned.

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