Jocara Newsletter
Oct 25, 2004

Well, things seem to happen very quickly here in Rodrigues. We quickly 
found a very helpful guy on the island that can weld aluminium and he has 
a little shack up in the green hills in the middle of a field with some 
cows. It's a lovely little walk to the welding shack with nice views of 
the harbour along the way and past the meteorological station.  The boom 
is already repaired and back on board sporting a fresh new coat of white 
paint.  

Casper and Alex spent a few educational and fun hours at the 'met' station 
where they had the opportunity to help prepare the weather balloon they 
release every afternoon at 14:00. 

Saturday we toured the local market, picking up fresh fruit, veg, meat and 
some locally-produced chilli-based sauces that are very tasty and quite 
impressive.  Caro used half a jar of a spicy little number featuring 
octopus to make a weapons-grade spaghetti last night that blew our socks 
off.  Caro sat there eating steadily, claiming it wasn't really all that 
spicy, while sweat trickled from her brow.  John gasped his way through a 
plate while Alex simply exploded at the first bite and even Casper 
declined to eat more than a mouthful as his inner lip burst into flame.  
Sunday we explored some of the NE corner of the island, visiting a small 
hotel there with Tom Hooper and his wife, Tara, from the marine research 
organisation 'Shoals Rodrigues'.   Casper and Alex snorkeled off the dark 
volcanic rocks, finding a surprising number of fish species on this 
exposed shore.  Today we were due to go out to survey a coral reef site, 
but ended up taking care of some boat jobs like repairing the bilge pumps 
and finishing off the short movie Caro has been working on about life on 
passage.  Never a dull moment!