Today, September 23rd is the first
day of fall, so I guess this was a good day to get out of town. The weather has co-operated so
far, it’s sunny today with overcast skies. Perfect for schlepping our overweight suitcases to the Port of Vancouver to board the ms Volendam for Australia.

Everything went flawlessly. Deb and I have done this a few times
before so I guess the planning really pays off in the end. As is normally the case we made
our way to the airport, parked the car in the YVR long-term lot (make sure you
use the code “alwayson” when booking on line – it’ll save you a ton of money)
and then boarded the sky train for the trip downtown ($9.00 each) to the port.

We made this walk from the ship to the sky
train with our friend Jean when we returned from our Panama trip in May; I
guess it must have been uphill, because it seemed so much easier this
time.

The Volendam has been quite surprising for a
sixteen-year old ship. She was christened in November 1999 and has a tonnage of 60,906GT, with 10 decks and carries 1,432 passengers and 647 crew. Fully decked out, she has the ability to run at 23 knots or 26 mph.

The Volendam is an R-Class cruise ship. She has three sister ships in the fleet, Zaandam, Amsterdam and Rotterdam. She was the second of these ships to be launched, the Rotterdam being the lead ship of the class. The Volendam is 238 m (781 ft), a 32.3 m (106 ft) beam and a 8.1 m (27 ft) draft. The ship's has been brought current as a result of a recent (2014) dry dock
renovation, so she’s standing real tall. According to the plaque, Chris Evert is the ship’s
godmother.

We were quite surprised at just how spacious our suite was on deck 7. Way more drawers
and storage space that what we’ve been used to in the past, plus the balcony is certainly a nice touch. We received a call from security, asking me to come down and go through my
suitcase. Apparently another new rule is “no extension cords”, so they have confiscated it until Sydney and brought me a more acceptable “Holland” model for our room.

With our first dinner over and done we caught the 8:00 p.m. comedy show and then headed for bed. We’ll be off in Seattle tomorrow morning about 7:00 a.m. for supplies
(coke, water and some wine) before we make that sharp turn to the west and head for Honolulu. Before I close this off, I’d like to acknowledge the passing of Yogi Berra one of the baseball’s greatest catchers and characters, dead at the age of 90. He was famous for his Yogi-isms, with my favourite being – “ya better cut that pizza into four pieces as I’m too full to eat six”. We’ll miss you Yogi. Next stop Seattle.