Jocara Newsletter
Sep 20, 2004

We're in Cocos Keeling!  After 3 days' of being thrown about and feeling 
sick, we arrived!  The passage was quite quick, really, with Jocara moving 
speedily along but making us suffer with her gyrations nonetheless.  Alex 
finally found his sea legs, just as his optimism about ever wanting to 
live again was waning.  We've also been taking air samples, and now have 3 
persistent organic pollutant (POP) and 3 micro-particulate samples for the 
folks back at the University to analyse.  The final entrance to Cocos 
Keeling was dramatic.  Just getting the sails down in that sea and wind 
was a challenge, then we motored in, crossing from deep blue-grey sea to 
brilliant turquoise as the depth rocketed up from over 1000m to just 3.5m 
as we felt our way in through the coral reefs.  As we stared 
disbelievingly at the amazing coloured water, not even yet anchored, we 
saw a shark glide across the sand below us.  We are now waiting at anchor 
in 'quarantine' which means we fly a yellow 'Q' flag and are not allowed 
ashore or to get near other boats until the authorities have cleared us 
in.  There are 12 other sailboats here, of all sorts, shapes and sizes.  
We are hoping to meet new friends and find other kids for Casper and Alex 
to play with.  Our current position is 12 deg. 05.60'S, 096 deg. 52.82'E.  
We will be here for a while, exploring the beaches and diving 
opportunities, cleaning the hull and making some repairs.  The steering 
needs attention again, there's still a tear in the staysail, the 
fore-hatch leaks... the list never ends!