On-board Clipper Odyssey Location: Honolulu, Oahu Day 10 by Wayne & Karen Brown

The ship is docked at the harbor in Oahu, not to far from our hotel. A short taxi ride brings us to our home for the next part of our expedition as we cruise across the Pacific Ocean. We will be leaving early tomorrow morning, but today we have time to unpack all of our equipment and settle in. We love this ship. We have worked on Odyssey for three years. Our first Internet expedition on the Odyssey was The Russian Kuril Islands Expedition. We were just on this ship about a month ago when we were exploring the Alaska Aluetian Islands in the Northern Pacific Ocean. If we have any rough seas we know this is a ship that will handle the seas well.

After getting settled in our cabin we go to the bridge to meet the captain. We are glad to see that onboard for our expedition is one of our favorite captains, Captain Frank. Captain Frank is from Australia, but lives in New Zealand. Captain Frank is a great scuba diver, so I'm sure he will be joining us for any scuba dives that we do on this expedition.

From the bridge we climb the stairs to the sun deck at the top of the ship. There we check out the inflatable boats we will be using on our expedition. These inflatable boats, called Zodiacs, are excellent for exploring. They won't sink, and are hard to tip over. The inflatable tubes that are the sides of the boats make good places to sit. These boats sit on top of the water so we can go into very shallow areas and not have to worry about the boats getting stuck. Each Zodiac is powered by an outboard engine.

After lunch we meet the rest of the expedition staff we will be working with during our expedition. During our expedition in the Alaska Aluetian Islands this summer we worked with everyone here, except Lynn and David. Everyone has a special job to do and we all try to help each other as much as we can. We have about 100 passengers onboard for this expedtion. Our job is to make this expedition as much fun for them as it is for us.Everyone is excited about this expedition, because none of us (except for Big John) have been to the places that we will be exploring.

After making our plans with the expedition staff we go to dinner, then return to our cabin. Tonight we are going to bed early, because early in the morning Odyssey will be leaving Oahu to start our voyage of exploring the islands of the Central Pacific Ocean.

Best Fishes,
Wayne & Karen Brown

Wayne and Karen having fun in the main lounge onboard Clipper Odyssey.

Captain Frank. The captain of Clipper Odyssey.

These are some the inflatable boats we will be using during our expedition to explore remote islands.

Here is the expedition staff we are working with. (From left to right: Big John, LIttle John, David, Lynn, Wayne & Karen, and Ingrid.)