Jocara Newsletter
May 6, 2005

Jocara is filled up to bursting with fuel, water and food, ready for the 
trip to Chagos. We've cleared out and said our goodbyes to the three 
brooding brothers (lush green mountain peaks) towering over Victoria and 
shopped till we dropped in Mahe. We've enjoyed our time in the Seychelles 
very much. Before the mayhem of running around Mahe getting ready to leave 
we took a relaxed week around Praslin, one of the neighbouring inner 
granitic islands, cruising from bay to bay, doing whatever took our fancy. 
Every snorkel turned up something interesting, nearly always finding 
juvenile hawksbill turtles and eagle rays. At one anchorage we discovered 
a path behind the ruins of a house at the shores of a tiny hidden beach. 
The path led through the forest and over a headland to the other side, 
revealing a gorgeous beach with crashing surf to play in. Yet another 
island offered the kids a chance to 'go native', clambering over huge 
boulders, slashing through jungle and climbing coconut trees to cut down 
coconuts, tying them together with braided leaves and stalks.  Casper 
baked an awesome coconut fudgecake with the proceeds.  We also had a 
really spectacular dive at a site we call 'cathedral ruins' where we 
glided between columns and pillars of rocks with pounding surf above 
injecting sunlit plumes of air bubbles. There's very little coral, but 
always so many fish!  But now it's time to leave, to find new challenges 
and horizons east.  Just as we were about to go to engine sprung another 
leak and overheated, so there's nothing new under the sun.  Now we begin 
our 1000 n.m. trek to Chagos, a group of uninhabited islands and atolls in 
the middle of the Indian Ocean.  Jocara's position at noon today was 4 
deg. 17.6'S, 55 deg. 41.3'E, on her way to take a quick look at a couple 
of turtle foraging grounds and possible Sperm Whale habitats before 
properly heading east for the long haul.

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 
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