Over the last few days it's been sea days, so very little to report. It’s been time spent on the balcony listening to tunes on the iPod, dinners and trying to make my way in the casino tournaments and cash games at night – without much success I might add. It’s quite obvious that that picture in my room is NOT an omen. The weather at sea has co-operated, blue skies and friendly seas have been the case since we left Seattle on Thursday. Today we attended the "medal ceremony" – we got our “bronze medallion” for our 100 days at sea with Holland. As much as this gets us closer to our 200 / 4 star status, it really is quite insignificant based on others that were in the room.

I ran into an old colleague last night in the casino, a guy that I worked with years ago in Toronto some twenty years ago - he and his wife are getting their “gold medallion” for their 500 sailing days – based on current sailing rates, that’s about a $200K investment for a cheap medal and free dry-cleaning. But significant all the same. There was one single, older lady who received her “platinum medallion” for 700 sailing days. Life must be good for some people I guess.

It’s Sunday at 12:25 p.m. (two hours difference from PST) on the 27th of Sunday and we’ve travelled 1,388 nautical miles with a total of 1183.2 nm left to go before we reach Honolulu. As you look out into the blue sea with a depth under the ship of 5,520 meters or well over 16,000 feet, you feel like you’re really off by yourself should there be any type of an emergency – but the Volendam cruises along at 23 nm westbound for what are sure to be good times.