Jocara Newsletter
Aug 2, 2005

Jocara now lies at anchor at 04 deg. 11.06'N, 073 deg. 26.67'E; a 
reclaimed island called Thilafushi in North Male atoll, otherwise known as 
'Dustbin Island'.  Before you get misty images of coconut palms, white 
sand beaches and coral-coloured water, this island is purely industrial 
and has nothing on it bar small factories and a gasworks.  It is largely 
composed of Male rubbish, brought out by the ton over many years and burnt 
here.  Replace romantic sunsets with Jocara sitting in grey brown water 
with a backdrop of burning rubbish tips reddening the evening horizon.  
Believe me, there are places in the Maldives you never knew existed.

The mast project is going... slowly.  The current plan (I think it's plan 
D) is to use 9m of  4.5" o.d. mild steel pipe with 3 mm wall thickness 
(great how the world's gone mixed metric, eh?) and reinforce it with some 
triangular lattice work in 1.5" steel pipe to make a jury mast.  It won't 
be pretty, it just has to work.  The backstay will be 3/8" stainless steel 
(scavenged from the old forestay) while the rest of the standing rigging 
will be 5 mm oiled mild steel (claimed breaking strength 6 ton when new) 
that we found in town.  Jury-rigged sails to fit are being knocked up out 
of the scraps we have remaining by a local curtain shop!  We'll see how it 
comes together.  The idea is to be able to carry enough sail to make 
reasonable progress in 10-20 knots of wind behind the beam, carrying 
sufficient fuel to motor pretty much all the way if we have to.  

Our dear Fairy Godmother Liz in Singapore has sent us out the new Harry 
Potter book, now awaiting pickup at the airport, so we can all look 
forward to enjoying a little escapism into that.  Sometimes our situation 
gets us down pretty badly, and it's no fun for Casper and Alex being here.  
We are aiming to leave by the end of this week if at all possible.  This 
will put in line to arrive in Langkawi around 20 August to refuel and 
motor directly on to Singapore.  It sure will be good to get Jocara back 
in one piece, well the piece that's left anyway.  Actually, she doesn't 
look too bad, from a distance!

Cheers for now,

>From the crew of Jocara.

P.S. Don't forget to check out our website at http://www.jocara.net for 
updates, pics and short movies, also archived newsletters.  Anyone can 
join the list or unsubscribe by sending an email to mandar@arl.nus.edu.sg 
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