Jocara Newsletter
April 21, 2005

The Seychelles may be expensive, the stereotyped 'tropical paradise' of 
the 'bounty' coconut/chocolate bar commercials and stuffed with affluent 
pink tourists and charter yachts (mostly nearly-new catamarans of enormous 
size)... but it is also remote, beautiful, and home to both wonderful 
people and rare indigenous species.  We are finding that we are enjoying 
these islands very much, and not so keen to rush off to Chagos, partly 
because there is no wind to speak of at all these days.  We are continuing 
our turtle foraging grounds research and had a wonderful opportunity to 
spend a morning patrolling turtle nesting beaches with Elke, a local 
turtle researcher, checking nesting sites and to release 147 turtle 
hatchlings she rescued from a disturbed nest just the day before.  We have 
since rescued 3 hatchlings ourselves from the choked seaweed and oily 
surface of Victoria harbour and released them just today in the lee of one 
of the inner islands.  Another real highlight was a visit to Cousin 
Island, made possible by Wildlife Clubs Seychelles.  Cousin is a tiny 
island reserve, a world-famous success story, packed with thousands of 
indigenous sea and land birds, skinks, geckos and Aldabra giant tortoises.  
Our days are sunny, hot and filled with stark images of granite rocks, 
palms and white sand beaches, mellowing in the evening to red sunsets.  
The kids are catching fish of all types (Tuna, Houndfish, Jobfish, 
Pompanos...) and squid that make a perfect pasta sauce.  Sometimes this 
almost feels like a holiday!  Jocara rests at anchor at 4 deg. 17.54'S, 55 
deg. 52.00'E

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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