Cruising the Pacific Ocean

This is our fourth full day cruising the not-so-gentle Pacific.  Not bad.  Just big swells.  Fortunately, no sea sickness.  But the big boat is rockin'.  We're about as far away from civilization right now as one can get and still be on this planet.  Approximately 1,500 miles from the nearest land.  We're as far from Los Angeles as we are from the first Polynesian islands we will visit four days from now, the Marquesas Islands.  Today has been the first day at sea where we've had a good amount of sunshine before it became overcast again.  But there is plenty to do on the ship, so we are far from bored.  Several excellent lectures each day by different scholars.  Photos to take.  Food to eat.  Books to read.  (I'm currently enjoying Jon Newman's new memoir titled "Benched.")  Speaking of photos, here's a few.

 First is a photo of Sunday's sunrise taken by Janis.  Because we went to sleep so early Saturday night (when we were still recovering from our 2:30 a.m. wake-up time Friday morning and adjusting to the time change), we woke up early Sunday, pulled the curtain back and saw this:

This morning I took some photos of birds/fish sighted on and around the ship.  Here's one of a Brown Booby (name provided by an on-board naturalist) sitting on the ship's bow mast.  Apparently it has spent the last two days there, except for brief excursions elsewhere.

And here are a few more in flight.  Quite a sight:  

    

        

I've also taken a few photos of the ship itself.  There seems to be an infinite number of attractive and comfortable spaces in which to spend time.  In the coming days I'll take more, but here's a start:

  

Note the jumbo screen in the pool area (below left) where any number of events, sports and otherwise, are broadcast.  The retractable roof is now in a closed position because of the changing weathe, but was open earlier in the day.

  
  

That's it for today.  Hope to post again in a day or two.