Jocara Newsletter
Dec 25, 2004

By the time you get this, Christmas will be over, so here's hoping your 
hangover was mercifully short and the New Year brings great things, other 
than more hangovers.

This Christmas Day Newsletter comes to you from a windless sun-baked day 
at 11 deg. 58.3'S, 44 deg. 30.4'E just 6 n.m. off the Comoros islands, on 
our way from Mayotte to Zanzibar.  We have been motoring since leaving 
Mayotte 18 hours ago, but we have only enough diesel (at 0.9 Euro a litre 
it's not cheap!) to motor for about half the way so we must find wind 
soon.  The sea is oily smooth and glittering fish jump clear of its 
surface to escape predators.  One small barracuda-looking fish landed 
right in our dinghy, 1.8m above the water over our stern, and lay there 
flapping madly last night.  We made him a Christmas present of freedom, 
tossed back into the water.

Here's hoping we make it the remaining 480 n.m. to Zanzibar to meet 
Caroline's parents before the end of 2004!

Cheers from the crew of Jocara; John, Caroline, Casper, Alex and (of 
course) our two cats Cannelle and Star.  Miau!

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 
join the list or unsubscribe by sending an email to mandar@arl.nus.edu.sg 
with the subject line 'subscribe jocara newsletter' or 'unsubscribe Jocara 
newsletter' as appropriate.