Jocara Newsletter
July 28, 2005

The sky is rosy pink with dawn light and Jocara rides gently at anchor in 
a light southerly breeze.  We are in Male, at 4 deg. 13.2'N, 073 deg. 
32.19'E, just surfacing from the first good night's sleep we've enjoyed in 
what seems a very long time.  The authorities in Gan were very kind to us 
and cleared us back in without delay.  Fuel was quickly organised and 
arrived in a tanker truck that was allowed to pull up alongside the Coast 
Guard jetty by special permission, as were we. We took on 1461 litres of 
diesel, so we won't be running out of the stuff for a little while.  

Then we left for Male, motoring all the way north, stopping for a few 
hours to take a look at a couple of atolls to take a dip and a snorkel. We 
pulled in to Male yesterday, 27 July, and were immediately swallowed by 
the frenetic rush of boat taxis, barges, tugs, fishing boats and water 
traffic of all descriptions.  Male town itself crowds the little atoll it 
sits on, the high-rise (while not Singapore scale) buildings seeming 
incongruous in this low-lying tropical atoll chain.  We are anchored near 
the airport, though the planes do not bother us and the pretty little 
seaplanes are fun to watch as they take off and land nearby.  We have 
already found a small boat yard that is now pricing up a project to make 
us a short wooden (pine) mast to get us back to Singapore.  We may move 
over to the yard in a day or two to work on that with the idea of getting 
on our way as soon as possible, hopefully in about a week's time.  

>From the crew of Jocara.

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 
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