It was a threatening morning. A low was passing north of us and building, bringing the wind north and the clouds dark. We planned to head back to Sam's in the afternoon.

Our first order of business was to have the cake Hideko had made for breakfast. Chocolate cake and espresso, the breakfast of champions. We had discovered that Jeanette has almost as vicious a sweet tooth as I do so we invited Dancer and Whistler over to join us.

It was a fun morning but it cost us a knot or two on the trip to Sam's. While we dawdled things got nastier out. Not terrible and we missed most of the rain, but there was a swell coming down the lagoon from the north, and of course that's where we were heading.

We did our best to duck behind the rock islands as we went but not having te local knowledge or the draft of the dive boats, we could only follow them through the more obvious deep water bits. We did make one fairly nerve wracking pass in 9 feet of water with the big chop rolling on the bow.

Once we cleared the pincers guarding the west entrance to Malakal harbor things settled down. Whistler was not far behind as we motored into the yacht anchorage and picked up a free Sam's mooring. It was nice to be back in port though we missed the Rock Islands already as well.