26:35N 15:28W
Tales of Amok's Adventures
Mike Jones
Sat 26 Dec 2009 04:35
There is no moon for me tonight and it is blacker than black out there. We have no ships around us, and the Swiss and Italian friends that we departed a little earlier than us from Las Palmas seem to have vanished. I am sure they are still there, but the swell shortens our horizons. Their boat weighed considerably less than ours, we wonder how they have fared in the seas that greeted us outside of Las Palmas. If we were chucked around a lot, how did they get on??
Brace yourselves sailors for this next blog, but I need to discuss the wretched ailment of seasickness. It is the world's worse feeling. If you wanted to wish something bad on your worst enemy then "may you suffer from seasickness" is is right up there with "may the eggs of 1000 fleas infest your armpits". In fact, the seasickness curse is shorter to say and the condition is worse than fleas and eggs in your pitskies. Those who have suffered will attest to this.
It creeps up on you in various disguises; loss of appetite, headache, excessive yawning and tiredness, sudden facial sweating when you go down below decks and the inability to tolerate any smells out of the ordinary, be them good smells or bad. Just in case these symptoms weren't obvious enough for you, there is also the overwhelming desire to reach for the rails or the heads whichever is closer, to leave you in no doubt.
Worse still is the emotion of "I couldn't care less" which it creates. Personally, I believe the loss of appetite to be the worst part as I am such a foodie. Imagine not caring enough to eat anything. How sad.
There are a few things you can do to combat it; of course. Take the pills in plenty of time, minimize time below decks, have a lovely husband who makes dinner and cups of tea for you and if in doubt, keep watching the horizon.
You know you have seasickness when your night watch finishes and you start taking your clothes off at the bottom of the companion way steps such that when you reach your bunk you can climb right in. The trick here is to take your clothes with you so that when you are on watch again, you can get dressed in your bunk, then dash for the cockpit as soon as you are awake. Getting dressed in a bunk takes some skill at any time, try it in a heaving sea when your bunk is forward of the mast.
You also know it when you try sending the same email 3 times, all unsuccessfully, because you can't manage to stay down below long enough to see it sent. (previous blog. boy, was I happy to see that one go.)
You stare longingly at the kettle down below and wish it would morph itself into a cup of green tea right beside you, without you going down below to do it.
Onboard Amok, we have Lavac vacuum toilets which means a vacuum seal is created in the toilet when you pump. The downside of this is the vacuum seal which is left afterwards is sometimes so strong you can't lift the lid for a few minutes. One of my greatest fears is not having the strength or the dexterity (or the time) to lift the lid to overcome the vacuum, with the inevitable consequences. How can I, as a woman, possibly argue about the lid being left down??
With 4 of us onboard, I can hardly say "that's my toilet and you can't use it just in case I need to use it in a hurry", can I??
so much for nothing to be thrown overboard...
Anyway, I know I'll get no sympathy from you lot, so I'll sign off. Just quick final word to say that my MOM gets the hero biscuit today for providing me with the best solution for the watermaker problem. She sent me an email entitled "salt water and powdered..." If only it had been that easy....!!! THANKS FOR THE LAUGH MOM!! xx
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