PVD

0800 position 16-52S 178-11E. Underway for the Yasawas

We liked Yandua so much that we decided to stay for an extra day. The entire crew took turns out on the SUPs during the morning. Eric and I went exploring the beaches on the leeward side of the bay. I'm always looking for glass balls (Japanese fishing floats) to add to my collection, and deserted beaches are a good place to find them. They are getting rarer though. I haven't found one in seven years, but that will just make the next find that much more satisfying. No luck again yesterday, but a couple of hours of beachcombing was fun anyway.

Rob spent the rest of the morning doing boat stuff like changing the engine oil, and in the afternoon went ashore to build a raft for Peter Van Dyck's (PVD's) ashes scattering ceremony. PVD was a close sailing mate of Rob's who passed away recently, and Rob was asked to scatter some of his ashes in a tropical paradise. There is no place prettier or more tropical than Yadua. The rest of the crew went ashore and worked on the raft all afternoon. I could hear power tools whirring away from Van Diemen, a quarter mile away. Just before sunset they came back in the dinghy towing what looked like a miniature bamboo version of Kon-Tiki complete with mast and deck. It was almost large enough to be a lifeboat for Van Diemen.

The entire Van Diemen crew piled onto the dinghy and towed the raft out to the pass through the reef where we stopped for the sunset ceremony. Rob poured PVD's ashes into a specially prepared half coconut shell on the raft's deck, activated a battery powered plastic duck on the raft that quacked, flashed lights, and laid eggs (Van Dyck... Van Duck...) and released the raft. Rob said a few moving words to honor his friend as Van Duck quacked and laid eggs in the background. We headed back to Van Diemen as it got dark, and as we were finishing up dinner a couple of hours later could still see the light in Van Duck flashing away as the raft slowly slipped over the horizon to the west. The whole surreal event was captured on video, coming soon to a theater near you....

We got an early start this morning on the last leg of our sprint west, a 55 mile dash to Yasawa island. The forecast fifteen knot trades were absent when we left Yadua at sunrise though, so we powered out of the bay and south to clear an area of reefs. A half hour after departing we noticed water in the bilge so Rob stopped the engine to investigate. It took an hour to find and correct the problem. While servicing the engine yesterday he had replaced a zinc in the oil cooler, and the gasket for the zinc was leaking. He got it fixed and we are now motor sailing again. Hopefully the wind will fill in soon so we can turn off the noise maker.

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