Jocara Newsletter
Oct 12, 2004

Last night we passed the half-way mark on our long trip (2000 n.m.) from 
Cocos to Rodrigues!  The GPS is now counting down the miles, 920 to go as 
of this morning.  Every morning we check in to a cruisers' net to give our 
position and weather and to let others know we are OK.  There are maybe 
8-10 sailboats in the Indian Ocean making passages at the moment (to Sri 
Lanka, Rodrigues, Madagascar, Mauritius, Seychelles, Chagos, South Africa, 
etc.).  We also check in with 'Altair' each evening on the HF radio, 
another boat we became friends with in Cocos and who are on the same route 
about 200 n.m. ahead of us.  Cruisers are quite a community.

We picked up some more wind and have been making steady progress, though a 
couple of days ago the sky was filled with rain squalls that made life a 
little damp in the cockpit.  Rain also sets off the radar alarm, so we 
can't get much sleep at night for fear of missing possible ships passing 
close by.  Today has a little more blue in  the sky, with the sea around 
us a sparkling blue with crisp whitecaps, instead of gun-metal grey. It's 
amazing what a little sun will do to brighten spirits.  

We have also been lucky enough to see a whale, 8-10m long, that appeared 
off our stern and proceeded to circle the boat for about 15 minutes at 
10-40 m range, clearly curious.  We think it was very likely a Minke 
whale.  Some time later, it made a brief re-appearance, apparently in the 
company of a couple of large dark dolphins who disappeared before we could 
identify them.  

Casper and Alex are bearing up well, occasionally losing their breakfast 
over the side but always recovering quickly.  Lethargy has sunk in, with 
Alex often lying around sucking his bear until midday and Casper 
complaining of boredom, so we're working on finding jobs and schoolwork to 
do for them both.  It's not easy living 24/7 on a small boat rocking and 
rolling at sea.

We've been getting some heavy strikes on our fishing lures, with big fish 
snapping our lighter lines and tackle (40-60 lb test), so John is 
upgrading to 80 lb test line in an attempt to preserve our last few 
remaining lures from being stolen.  Casper is learning fishing skills and 
preparing lures.  The fish that are biting are obviously few but big.  We 
are really keen to get a big juicy tuna on board!  

Now looking forward to arriving in Rodrigues in about another 7 days.  
Position at 03:30 UTC on 12/10/2004 is 15 deg. 48.8'S, 78 deg. 55.4'E, 
making about 6-7 knots in 15-20 knots of wind from 110 deg. with 2-3 m of 
sea swell, steering 260 degrees.

Cheers from the Crew of Jocara!