Before we entered the ship, we passed through Customs ... we weren't entering or leaving Mexico, but this is common whenever you pass between Mexican states. Mark pressed a button to see whether the inspectors wanted to glance into our bags. We got a green light and walked on board with RC undetected.

We had a small cabin for two so as soon as the steward left, we set up RC's litter box and let him out of his traveling case.

The Pacific Ocean was dead calm when we left port at 3PM. The ship's stabilizers were on for the first hour and RC settled in for a long nap. We were beginning to think sea travel might be a great choice whenever the journey would be long. We all had room to move around and a comfortable place to sleep.

At 9 PM, RC awoke ready for his dinner ... he usually eats on long car and plane rides so we filled his bowl. He munched up supper and quickly returned to his slumber.

An hour later, the ship began rocking and rolling with the waves ... RC was looking poorly. He lost most of his dinner before 11 PM ... I thought he lost all of it, but around 2 AM, he brought the last of it up. We continued to rock across the Sea of California with a miserable RC ... he meowed plaintively and dozed when he could. It was a long 18 hour journey. An hour before we reached La Paz, the ship's stabilizers were turned on again, and the ship smoothed out. By the time we disembarked, RC was chipper.

We had to pass through Customs again ... this time everybody's bags were quickly searched. I told the official that we had a "gato" (cat in Spanish) inside one bag and he simply glanced at RC and waved us through ... no papers were checked for RC or us.

We've revised our evaluation of traveling by sea ... when the trip is short or unavoidable, we'll do so. But it's on the bottom of the list for modes of transport for RC.