Jocara Newsletter #6

Two days later, and we're still peacefully bobbing at anchor in exactly
the spot we dropped when we came in from our long beat to windward,
occasionally waving at curious local fishermen in their outrigger
pirogues, who pass close by with big smiles and sometimes waving small
sharks and other fish they've caught; attempting to trade for them.  The
20th was a slow day of rest and recovery, except that we had so many jobs
to do and felt guilty as the day slipped by without significant action.  
After lunch John pressed himself into service to investigate why our
primary autopilot has gone on strike and promptly did something
spectacularly stupid...  he free-fell down the open lazarette hatch he'd
just uncovered and gashed his foot open on the top of the stainless steel
rudder post inside.  A nasty cut, slicing a big piece of flesh out of his
instep, but apparently without damage to muscle, bones, tendons or
anything important.  It has put him completely out of action, however, and
he is now hopping around the boat like a wounded bird emitting pitiful
cries for painkillers and beer.  This has convinced us that we should stay
an extra day or two so the sail down to Merak will be a little easier.  
Alex spent much of the 20th still sick as a parrot, despite the boat now
being anchored in flat calm, and still unable to keep anything down.  
After some serious words about his mental block on eating and drinking, he
did force some pita bread and water down that stayed down, and made a
miraculous mid-afternoon recovery, playing with Casper in the water by
day's end.  True to our promise that Alex could eat a juicy burger when he
got better, Caroline baked some rolls and grilled some wonderful lamb
patties for dinner yesterday, which we followed up by watching 'Life of
Brian' that Liz had very kindly donated to us just before our departure.  
Today we're going to tackle the watermaker, tracing the tubes, hoses,
pumps and wires to see if we can get it started up now we're in cleaner
water and before we get to Merak so we can get spares in case we need
them.

John and the crew from Jocara.