Cocos Keeling Islands/World

Dear all,

Cocos Keeling is such a quaint little place, heavily subsidised by the
Australian Government with 65% of population unemployed, the result is a
very chilled out atmosphere, nobody is stressed. None of them are poor, they
drive pretty smart golf buggys around, they have good labelled food in the
shops and dress in very beautiful saris as they are muslim. Everyone is
happy, smiling and welcoming towards us. Its like a little remote world,
with little work but a very very peaceful life! We are anchored off
Direction Island which is an uninhabited island which is like a desert
island! its so so so stunning! The waters around us are so clear its like
a swimming pool, with the different shades of turquoise gleaming off the
water the deeper it gets. Getting around you can only use your dinghy, so to
go shopping you speed over to the main Island and then bring it back passing
the most stunning idyllic scenery, a far cry from our drive home from
Sainsbury's!!! We have a school of five Black tipped reef sharks close to
the boat and we have been in swimming with them. The Customs officer
described them akin to mongrel dogs!

On our first day here we were invited to a BBQ on Direction Island with the
other boats anchored in the bay. Many doing a similar route to South Africa.
A great night was had, and hope we will catch up with some of the boats over
the next couple of months. On Saturday we made our way to West Island to
see what was there! One supermarket that sold more conventional products and
an airport! Yesterday we snorkelled the RIP a local drift snorkel, on the
end of direction island. Tomorrow we hope to do the RIP again and try and
find the local Dugong - the locals call him/her "Kat"(sea cow).

Unfortunately we have had generator problems that has, meant we have been
doing repairs in Paradise but we have our fingers crossed that it is fixed
now. We also had the fun of getting fuel today with three trips of 2 miles
each way to the jetty with 4 jerry cans, 4 water cans and 2 gas bottles!!!
But its done now!

We hope everyone at home is well,

We anticipate leaving later this week for our next leg.

Lots of love,
Ocean Lady