Jocara Newsletter
Aug 17, 2005

Today Jocara reached the half-way point on her long haul from Male in the 
Maldives to Langkawi in Malaysia; just another 800 n.m. to go.  At 04:00 
UTC we were at 5 deg 00'N, 86 deg. 47'E.  We have had some current helping 
us along, but that is now gone so our speed is down; it may take a little 
longer to complete the second half of the trip.  Still, we have burnt only 
550 litres of our 1450 litres of diesel and are still able to sail, albeit 
slowly, so we're in good shape.  We now anticipate arriving in Langkawi on 
24th August. The days pass with us reading and napping, trying to get some 
rest in the interminable rolling, made worse by the lack of a full mast 
(which greatly increases the roll inertia of a sailboat).  The kids are 
finding it difficult to do schoolwork, indeed anything that requires 
concentration, and frustrations run high.  Caro strives to keep up with 
cooking good food to keep our spirits up while John is occupied with the 
usual list of mechanical tasks.  The latest failure is the high-capacity 
alternator we had fixed in Gan.  Some Sri Lankan fishing boats have 
livened up our days (and nights) by coming by to inspect us and following 
us from time to time, but we seem to have left them behind now we are 
further east.  So far the weather has been mild and is predicted to stay 
that way for a while.  If everything continues to hold together for just 
another week we will have got over the biggest challenges in getting back 
in one piece and our nerves can take a break.  Meanwhile we are catching 
skipjack tuna and both crew and cats are enjoying our last truly fresh 
sashimi and sushi dinners of the trip.  

>From the crew of Jocara.

P.S. Don't forget to check out our website at http://www.jocara.net for 
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