Day 156: Vava’u, Tonga – 11/06/10

We hear on the VHF that while moored at the customs dock, Brown Eyed Girl was boarded and burgled while they were asleep.  Their laptop and an underwater camera have been taken.  What a lovely welcome.

I am in desperate need of some female company and call Maggie to see if she is free.  So desperate is this need that I actually get in the dinghy and drive myself over to Ocean Jasper, stopping to pick up Reiner from Sunrise on the way then getting into the main town fishing marina.

Maggie and I go to the market first as I really want to find some tomatoes (which I actually manage to do) and then we find a cafe to sit and chat.  Maggie has a great shoulder to cry on and I sit and let go of all my feelings about the trip.  I know I don’t cope well when things go wrong with the boat, especially when we are somewhere in the back of beyond and can’t get help or parts, and this is one of the things that triggers homesickness.  I hate feeling pathetic like this and it is great having someone who understands just how hard this ‘wonderful experience of a lifetime’ actually can be.  It’s not like we are jetting from one place to another, staying in lovely hotels with an unlimited amount of money behind us.  I know from a distance, especially to people who have no experience of sailing, it reads like I am living the life of Riley, but actually, it can be really tough on lots of fronts and I do get sick of people expecting me to be having fun at every bloody moment,

Enough said.  Anyway, Maggie gets the brunt of it, complete with red rimmed eyes and runny nose, and she even buys me my coconut milkshake.  Thanks friend!

After my wailing and hand wringing I feel much better and take her back to Ocean Jasper where they have been re-fuelling.  She gives me some magazines (we all devour crap like Hello magazine out here although I am adamant that I only look at the pictures) and I go back to Jeannius to get her one that I have plus some books.  On the way I actually go fast enough to make the dinghy plane and frighten myself a bit but it all stays under control and soon I am back, and sitting on Crazy Horse having a drink (water!).  They offer me wine but I am such a fussy cow (which they know) and decline their Chardonnay.

After lunch Mike puts together a cable which can link the inverter to the shore power inlet.  This, as long as we put enough power through the system from the two engines, should fool the water maker into thinking that it is getting its power from the shore, but it fails to work as he then discovers that the water maker needs 20 amps to start and the most the inverter can supply is 15 amps.  Still the system works well enough to run one of the air conditioning units so we can have a bit of cool if we want, although actually we haven’t needed it recently. 

We had intended leaving for one of the more pretty anchorages off one of the tiny islands that make up the Vava’u group, but Mike is so pissed off that he can’t sort the generator out that we give up on the idea.

Instead I spend the early part of the evening cutting out circles of plastic from an old water bottle to use as washers for the windlass.

Photo:  Making washers

By the time I have made thirteen or so, Mike pronounces that they will probably do the trick and goes to fit them on to the windlass.  It fits much tighter and seems to grip better as Mike practises with about three foot of chain.  We’ll find out for definite the next time we try to get the anchor up but will make sure that when we do this we are anchored near a boat full of muscle so we can call for help if it all fails!