Kathryn’s Voyage Blog

Publish Date: Sunday, December 19, 2010
Seasickness Sally here to report on our sloppy sea slog from Florida to the Bahama Bank. If you’re following Dave’s blog you know that Yacht Tech pulled off a Herculean effort in getting Three@Sea back in the water on Friday after all of her maintenance and repairs. The weather gods seemed to smile upon us and provide an unusually good weather window so that we could make the run from Florida all the way to Puerto Rico in one shot (about 6.5 days at sea). So with a flurry of activity and last minute provisioning we got off the dock Friday night about 10:00 p.m.

As any good superstitious cruiser knows, you never start a voyage on a Friday. Therefore from 10 p.m, until midnight we were just doing a “sea trial” to make sure all of our repairs were in good shape. 🙂 Shortly after midnight we deemed the boat in good shape, offered a Christmas cookie to Poseidon, and began our voyage in earnest.

Forecast was for light to moderate winds (11 to 14 kts) out of the southeast, and seas of 2 to 3 feet. This would give us a slight head sea, but should be no problem. Within an hour of coming out the Lake Worth inlet our boat speed was down to 3.5 kts (usually run about 6 to 7 kts) and we were confronting head seas and a stiff head wind at 25 to 30 kts. Hmmmm….a passing squall? A local anomaly? Poseidon didn’t like the cookie?

At less than 3 miles offshore, we discovered we were already fighting the Gulf Stream which accounted for some of our speed issues. We angled back in, running less than a mile offshore now, and picked up about a knot. However, the wind kept up and we were hobby horsing over 3 to 5 ft waves with very little period between them. At times it felt like Three@Sea was actually airborne for a second or two before crashing into the next wave. Talk about water over the bow! And this became the sloppy sea slog all the way to the Bahama bank, which took us about 18 hours. Unfortunately this resulted in a nasty case of seasickness for me.

Over the last two years, I have developed a pretty good system for keeping my sea sickness in check: Plenty of rest before departure; small, light meals; eyes on the horizon; and one Bonine tablet every 12 hours for the duration of the voyage starting one hour before departure. This has seen me through several long passages, and even a good size gale off the coast of South Carolina. Unfortunately it’s not fail safe. Within an hour at sea I began to feel bad, and it just got worse. During my first watch, which started at 4:30 a.m., I felt yucky but just sucked it up. After what seemed like an hour and half I looked at my timer and saw it had only been nine minutes. It was going to be a long watch!

When Dave took over at 7:30 a.m. it was the last time he or Ayla saw me until 11:30 p.m., 16 hours later. Dave and Ayla covered my watches the rest of the day because I felt so bad. It’s hard to describe sea sickness to someone whose never experienced it (although I’m sure every person’s experience is different). For me, it makes me extremely lethargic. I mean really lethargic, just getting to the bathroom can be a feat of great stamina. Then of course is the intense nausea. My skin tingles with tightness, like it’s stretched to the maximum to keep my entire insides from erupting forth. My toes curl up in a resistive attempt to keep from coming up through my throat. Well you get the picture… it’s not pretty. When it gets bad, my best shot is to lay as still as possible in the fetal position in the salon, and just try to breath slowly. Occasionally, I would think I was feeling better and try to rejoin the gang in the pilothouse, only to be forced back to the salon usually within 30 seconds.

Fortunately, for everyone, once we were on the Bahama Bank the seas settled considerably. It still took 4 or 5 hours before I was feeling better, but now I have finally been able to relieve Dave, who has headed below for some much needed sleep. He and Ayla were troopers — even though they don’t get seasick, it is still exhausting to be in sloppy seas. As we’ve said before, successful cruising is all about teamwork. Dave and Ayla were there 100% to cover for me. I hope to thank them with a long restful sleep, and some good food upon their waking.

Next up, “Tongue of the Ocean”, where the shallow waters of the Bahama Bank meet the deep ocean of the Atlantic. This location got me two years ago with a huge pile up of waves. This year I’m hoping for a gentle lapping at the hull versus a solid licking. Keep your fingers crossed!

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P.S. By the time this blog was posted via the satellite phone, we had made it across the Tongue of the Ocean without incident:  a nice lapping following sea. 🙂