It's Monday morning, Jan 18th and we are 260 miles southwest of Honolulu. Seas remain calm (slight swell from astern), weather is a warm 27c and mostly sunny.

The crew have settled into their sea duties; chipping, scraping, painting, greasing and cleaning away the salt and carbon from the decks.

The captain has filled the swimming pool once again, so Jean spends her afternoons sunning on the pool deck. She spends the rest of her days reading, knitting and doing more jigsaw puzzles. I spend a lot of time on deck and on the bridge, and I'm knocking off more novels than you can shake a stick at. I'm getting quite used to the Sony e-readers we brought along, and now like reading my books electronically. Didn't think I would at first. Certainly is a lot more compact to carry around than 55 paperback novels. Perfect for traveling. e-Books are also less expensive than their paper counterparts.

We are shooting to arrive at the western end of the Panama Canal (Balboa) on the evening of January 29th, but that is entirely dependent on mother nature at this point. If weather and sea conditions remain favorable, we'll make it.....if not...?

This is prime whale watching season off Hawaii, but so far we've only spotted one whale (too far off to see much). We keep looking.