Hello from somewhere in the Pacific Ocean! We have finally made it here out to sea and the past 36 hours have been surreal. I arrived at the port of Ensenada, Mexico Sunday afternoon and boarded the big and beautiful MV Explorer. Most of the day was spent just getting settled in and getting familiar with the ship.  My roommate hails from Orange County, CA and is a great guy. My cabin is a standard size outside double on the 4th deck. It's a great sized room and should make for a comfortable living area these next few months. The rest of the boat is beautiful and immaculate. I think it was used as a luxury cruise ship before joining SAS. The remaining signs that read "casino", "club lounge", and "dance floor" are all terribly misleading.
   There were some immigration issues on Sunday night that prevented us from leaving on time but around 7:00pm Pacific time we were on our way in to the vast, dark seas. So far so good with my sea legs. I'm more tired than anything else though. We were told in our first orientation meeting Monday night that we were heading in to some rough waters which was a bit discomforting but the rocking of the boat just made it that much easier to fall asleep. This morning we awoke around 8:00am to nothing but a blue sky and the endless ocean, no land in sight! During breakfast our captain made an announcement updating us on the first night's sail. With an average speed of 20 knots we have traveled a little over 330 nautical miles and have about 2,100 nautical miles to go until we hit our first port at Hilo, Hawaii. The weather so far this morning has been perfect and the water is a little choppy but manageable.
    Everyone on board seems very nice and we're all equally excited for the months ahead of us. Until Hilo, we will be at sea for the next seven days taking classes and getting to know each other better.
   I hope all is well on land! More soon...

Best,
Chris