Jocara Newsletter
Dec 7, 2004

This newsletter comes from the northern tip of Madagascar. The cape 
appeared on the bow as the sun came up on 5 December, Alex's birthday.  We 
made our way around to the west and southwards to a secluded bay to anchor 
and rest after the crossing from Rodrigues via Cargados Carajos, and 
chanced upon a pod of Spinner Dolphins who dutifully did their thing, 
hurling themselves out of the water and landing on their backs for fun.  
We also caught a beautiful blue fish in 30 m of water on the way in, but 
were too concerned about the risk of Ciguatera to brave eating it, so we 
let it go.  Inside the bay we found yet another group of dolphins, this 
time Bottlenose.  What a morning!  The rest of the day was spent repairing 
several bits of broken gear after the slamming damages of light winds and 
tossing swells on the way over. The next day we made our way south along 
the coast, enjoying the strange new world of Madagascar - the huge sky 
full of layers of strange clouds and blues of the most delicate shades, 
barren rocks of black lava, brown and red iron-rich sandstones and African 
trees, strange and mesmerising to our European eyes.  The land looks 
ancient, burnt, deserted.  We saw only one small fishing boat hauled up on 
the shore, a couple of dilapidated 'tents' for shelter up the beach. The 
night turned blustery, with up to 24 knots of wind, and very rolly, so 
Caroline and John  got little sleep. Today (John's birthday) we moved 
anchorages and explored some beaches, clambering over rocks and exploring 
the shallows.  There are a huge number of very large and beautiful shells 
here, much larger in size than we've seen anywhere else in the world.  
There's also remarkably little plastic rubbish on the shoreline. This 
evening Alex caught a very respectable red snapper on the casting rod, 
while Casper brought in a small lobster, hand-speared. We anchor tonight 
in the partial and still-rolly lee of a tiny island at 12 deg. 28.0'S, 48 
deg. 42.3'E, hoping for a better night's rest!  Tomorrow we plan to set 
off for Geyser reef, 130 n.m. to the west, on the way to Mayotte. Check 
out our website at http://www.jocara.net and see all the new chatty log 
material, just uploaded.

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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