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Windleblo - Day Fourteen



Seasickness. Coming from the Rocky Mountains, I have often likened this dreaded sailor's disease to altitude sickness, at least in one respect. Just as altitude sickness is only cured by coming down to a lower elevation, for coastal cruisers seasickness is only cured by returning to calmer waters.

I've never fully understood how, but apparently its the inner ear that's the culprit with seasickness. Somehow, the random motions of a sea tossed boat cause the inner ear to get mixed up. The consequences are the signature symptoms of seasickness -- lethargy, headache, nausea. As I said, for the day sailor the only cure is to head back to port. But for the blue water sailor, happily there's another solution. Time. After a few days at sea, the inner ear adjusts and, mysteriously, the symptoms of seasickness subside.

We've been at this for long enough that we are well adjusted to the motion of the ocean and any seasickness that might have touched us early in the passage is now long forgotten. But there's a new affliction at work: sleep deprivation.

You'd think that with a crew of four working a two-hour watch schedule -- two hours on watch, six off -- there'd be plenty of time for sleep, perhaps even too much time. After all, that works out to a total of six hours on watch and 18 hours off in each 24-hour period. But it doesn't quite end up that way. The demands of sailing across an ocean mean that often a second hand is needed on deck to help with sail handling, and quality sleep is often elusive when the boat is rolling and pitching and you know your alarm will go off soon for your next watch. Plus, the constant exposure to the elements takes its toll.

The net effect is a kind of continuous dull exhaustion that stays with you day in and day out. Before the voyage, we talked about it as an inevitability and discussed its impacts in terms of the potential to affect judgment and morale. It can even cause delusions.

Take, for example, the following exchange I overheard between the Coach and Joules this morning. They were sitting in the cockpit together, blankly staring out into the middle distance, nothing but an endless sea surrounding them.

"I'm going for a walk up town to buy some eggs," said Coach in his Irish English. "Do you need anything?"

"No," replied Joules. "I have to catch a bus uptown myself later on. Perhaps we can meet for a beer."

"That would be lovely," said the Coach.

If I didn't know better, at this point of the voyage I would think these guys were suffering from sleep deprivation induced delusions. But I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and chalk it up to a bit of playful fantasizing perhaps induced by a touch of boredom.

Time will tell. But, who knows? Could it be that the lack of sleep will win out in the end and one of them will catch that uptown bus after all?

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