008:42.325W

Atlantico Marina, Leixoes, Nr Oporto, Portugal

Harry and Isabelle were called on deck today to watch a boat attempting to leave the Marina. It was badly done with no forethought or planning and had huge potential for an enormous amount of damage to be done. It was a harsh lesson for us all. In the end, after many people had come to assist, our French friend yelled through the wind to him "you are not to leave, it is too dangerous." Fortunately he is still tied up next to us but it was good for the children to see how not to do something! The wind was still very strong, the swell outside is 6m high and someone was going to get hurt. 

I broached the dreaded subject of seasickness last night:

We have very sadly been tormented by the problem since leaving the UK. You can feel justified in thinking 'why didn't they sort it before committing to this trip' and that is a very wise question! We tried to sort it and felt quite confident with the mixture of drugs on board (stugeron, bonine meclazine hydrochloride, ear patches, wrist bands, the list goes on) that we would be able to combat it....

However, Bol has been struck three times, crossing the Channel, crossing the Bay of Biscay first time, Bayona to here last week. It is miserable for him, he is virtually incapacitated, unable to focus on anything and exhausted. What is very cruel is that the rest of us might feel queasy, or might even be sick, but we're not incapacitated as he is and bounce back quickly.

Fortunately thus far the legs haven't been too long and we have managed to find refuge after 24/36 hrs to give Bol time to recover. It is a bit like child-birth, a few days in port and he feels he can face it again. However, the third occurrence from Bayona is now putting our Canaries/Madeira/Atlantic crossing in jeopardy. We are getting close to jump off point and need to be realistic ~ it is potentially dangerous for us to continue. If he got seasick at the start of a 1 or 3 week voyage and something technical went wrong on board we would be in a pickle. I can sail/cook/navigate/look after children, but I can't do that and mend broken engines. 

In the UK he was surviving on Bonine meclazine hydrocholoride and seemed OK to Falmouth, but the weather was very calm. The Channel crossing, using Bonine, was another matter and it took him several days to recover in Camaret/Roscanval.

We can now look back at our Camaret departure and admit we made a mistake not turning back once we found that Hurricane Bertha had left a huge swell in her wake. But we didn't turn back hoping the swell would decrease further offshore but it wasn't the case and Bol suffered again, hence returning to France. However, whilst at sea that time we put the ear patches on and he didn't sink as low as the Channel crossing which gave us confidence in the ear patches.

For the 2nd Biscay attempt he took both Bonine and the ear patches and did very well but the side effects were pretty grim, dry mouth, dodgy stomach, dizziness, dodgy eye sight and short temper ~ yes calm patient Bol was short tempered which led to the children calling Bonine 'Daddy's Grumpy Pills'!

Leaving La Coruna we took a risk and just used ear patches, we had some bumpy seas and he was OK, so thought we had cracked it.

BUT leaving Bayona we made another mistake, we had planned to leave on Friday morning and aimed to put the ear patches on Thursday evening, giving them 12+ hours to get into his system. A weather check Thursday lunchtime looked hopeful for a Thursday evening departure so we put them on at 12noon and left at 6pm which wasn't enough time. His recovery was quicker this time once in Leixoes BUT he still had a miserable journey.

We realise now we definitely need to put the ear patches on the night before, even 24hours before, to get the medicine into his system.

Therefore looking to the future; we are hoping that this coming week all this horrendous weather will have finished, a northerly wind will be blowing and the swell will be much calmer by Tuesday to do our final coastal overnight hop to Lisbon before committing offshore to the Canaries and further afield.

As you can imagine, much torment and discussion going on here. Desperate to find the solution to enable him to enjoy the sailing. It hasn't helped that we have had not had those beautiful trade winds mentioned in all the books. If we can get to Lisbon without incident, we can then consider the Canaries.  Right now an Atlantic crossing seems like a mountain to climb, so we need to take one step at a time.