We spent the morning fueling up the dink at Sam's and working on the internet. We paid bills and filed our taxed online and got other miscellaneous things done to prep for our Rock Island cruise. Dermot at Sam's helped us out tremendously with charts, anchorage tips and many other necessities.

At noon, Eric, Julie and Pepe headed out on Whistler. An hour later we followed. We had no problem staying in touch on VHF 69 (which is high power) but when you get too close to a rock island you lose touch with those on the far side. After exiting the pincers, the west pass into Malakal harbor which looks like a set of surgical pincers, we basically made a B line for the center of Ulong. We saw no depths less than 80 feet once on track. The Ocean Hunter (a live aboard dive boat here) was on our track a couple miles in front of us, which was reassuring.

There was no real wind. We had the sail bag open but never saw fit to put up the main. Instead we motored at 8 knots in the flat water for the hour to Ulong.

Whistler tried to get into two of the super protected anchorages tucked into the interior of the rock island maze that is Ulong. Unfortunately it was low tide and there was no water (6 inches reported by Eric) at the entrances. In the end we settled for the more open anchorage off the beach on the west side of Ulong.

The anchorage is workable but not perfect. See report tomorrow.

Once hooked up we set about getting Eric's new crew from Argentina, Pepe, certified as an Open Water diver. Everyone had a great time in the warm water of the anchorage.