Jocara Newsletter
Jan 10, 2005

We arrived in Zanzibar on 2 January, battling headwinds even until the 
last moments into the wave-tossed anchorage where we saw Caroline's 
parents waving to us from ashore.  Stonetown turned out to be a 
fascinating place, full of exotic new sights and colour.  We eagerly took 
up opportunities to eat ashore and catch up on sleep while organising 
reprovisioning and essential repairs.  Checking in and out turned out to 
be a somewhat lengthy affair, traipsing around a variety of offices in the 
busy little port with an unanticipated $50/person visa cost.  Still, the 
people are friendly, happy cries of 'Jambo' (hello in Swahili) greeting us 
everywhere and the funny-sounding 'Akuna Matata' (don't worry)  made 
famous by Disney's Lion King, but in genuine use here.  We employed a 
local 'scary' (a young man called Morrocco whose job it was to guard our 
dinghy on the beach and Jocara at anchor from opportunistic locals who 
might think we could do without some of our more portable items, like 
outboard motors) for US$10/day and had no problems.  We also met with our 
contact in the Institute of Marine Sciences in Zanzibar and received 
promising support to work with them later in the month.  On the evening of 
5 Jan. we set off for Pemba Island, 60 n.m. north and just offshore, to 
explore this supposedly pristine marine environment.  We met up with 
Caroline's parents again there on the 6th (who'd taken the fast ferry) and 
moved on to Misali Island, a small islet that is now a marine park.  For 
the next few days we explored Misali and north Pemba, finding that the 
famed marine life now seems heavily exploited and that less colourful 
coral and sizeable fish are to be found than we had hoped.  The Misali 
park authorities were very helpful and gave us full support to explore and 
photograph their beautiful park.  We will provide them with images and 
video to promote the park and its aims and to create more public awareness 
by featuring Misali on our webpages.  The area is filled with traditional 
lattine-rigged sailing dhows and dugouts.  Their lights, probably fishing 
for herring or sardines, dot the horizon like a town at night.  By day, 
they paddle furiously around schools of fish, paying out nets, while 
others spearfish using masks and fins and still more patrol the exposed 
reef at low tide, probably looking for octopus and shellfish.  We did make 
a couple of dives and saw three huge Napoleon Wrasse, but the visibility 
was not great.  Nor have we been without boat equipment failures, 
yesterday standing out as a 'day from hell' as John spent most of it up to 
his armpits in sh*t fixing our blocked toilet...  Now we are gently 
drifting along on our way west to the mainland, to Tanga, where we plan to 
keep the boat while we go inland to explore Arusha and take a short 
Safari.  Our position as I write is 4 deg. 59.8'S, 39 deg. 29.8'E, heading 
west at a leisurely 1.5 kts.

All the best 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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