Jocara Newsletter
May 14, 2005

It seems that every time we make a passage, we are surprised.  Sometimes 
pleasantly, sometimes not; the latter more frequent, it seems, than the 
former.  This time we have been pleasantly surprised, at least so far.  We 
expected little or no wind and to have it on the nose when there was.  
We've indeed had little wind, but mostly just enough to sail, and so far 
at good angles.  After poking around a turtle foraging site on the 
Seychelles bank (nothing exciting there) and then a half-day cruising 
around the 1000 m depth contour looking for Sperm whales (none seen) we 
finally set our sails for Chagos, 970 n.m. to the east, on the afternoon 
of 8 May.  Since then we've caught a 9 kg Big Eye Tuna (delicious 
sashimi!) and seen the sparkling phosphorescent trails of dolphins playing 
in our bow wave on a moonless night while plugging steadily east, riding a 
favourable current, at about 120 n.m./day. there are some privations; 
We've completely run out of Sushi Nori (dried Japanese seaweed) so sushi 
is out of the question.  It's a tough life!  We've begun chatting to the 
30 or so boats in Chagos on the HF radio, now only 300 miles away, picking 
up gossip and details about which to visit and where the best fishing is.  
As we'd hoped, there are boats with kids on board.  Casper and Alex sorely 
need some new friends to mess about with.  We are all very much looking 
forward to the tropical island life of Chagos, one of the most spectacular 
and remote tropical places on earth and much vaunted by cruisers the world 
over. We are now at 4 deg. 38.5'S, 066 deg. 46.9'E, heading east with 
maybe 3 days to go.

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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