I’ve been sea-sick many times, but usually just for a few hours then it’s done. After the first watch and i choke down a meal its usually done.
Worse to date…bad bad bad tugboat ride in a steep 20-25’ (8 second period) new england nor’easter, so there’s going to be an occasional 30+ footer. Should have been weatherbound, but that’s none of my business. Got on watch just as it was getting the worse of it (probably a tide change) and did ok for about 20 minutes. Now I try and keep it down…not going to puke…not going to puke…TRASH BARREL NOW! suffered the rest of the watch. had to lay on the wheelhouse deck with radar angled in my direction, peeking out the windows every few minutes but no other people dumb enough to be out there with us. I wasn’t right for a few days after that beating.
[QUOTE=z-drive;169163]I’ve been sea-sick many times, but usually just for a few hours then it’s done. After the first watch and i choke down a meal its usually done.
Worse to date…bad bad bad tugboat ride in a steep 20-25’ (8 second period) new england nor’easter, so there’s going to be an occasional 30+ footer. Should have been weatherbound, but that’s none of my business. Got on watch just as it was getting the worse of it (probably a tide change) and did ok for about 20 minutes. Now I try and keep it down…not going to puke…not going to puke…TRASH BARREL NOW! suffered the rest of the watch. had to lay on the wheelhouse deck with radar angled in my direction, peeking out the windows every few minutes but no other people dumb enough to be out there with us. I wasn’t right for a few days after that beating.[/QUOTE]
The worst seas that I can recall was when we were towing an SL-7 from Philly to New Orleans on the Crowley GAUNTLET. . . . bad timing coming across Hatteras, 30’+ seas, ship broadside to the wind and dragging us backward for about 4 hours. . . 900 rpm pointing south. . . . fuel tanks really stirred up so getting fuel filter alarms every couple of hours. . . took a flier across the slick wheelhouse deck and still wear that scar on my leg. . .but never got sea sick. . . . yet that one night on the PIPELINE DIVER some 8 years later. . . .
I have NEVER been sea sick. At the very worst, I get a headache from mental and physical fatigue, lack of sleep and wedging myself in my rack with my gumby suit, pumping my thighs all day trying to remain upright.
I am a career mariner, spent years in the Bering Sea fishing with rotten fish, rotten crab guts, and vomit of my shipmates swilling around shin-deep in a fish hold.
2 fifty-day trips to Antarctica and back thru the “Roaring 40s and Furious 50s”.
Those are only some highlights.
Not bragging or anything, Just weighing in. I’m told some day out of the blue my number will come up. I feel sorry for my mates that are pushed to the point of "First you are afraid you are going to die, then you are afraid you won’t!"
I can only imagine it would be like the worst case of food poisoning I ever got.
I suggest something with ginger in it, ginger-ale (with real ginger) or ginger-snap cookies for example have helped some people with the nausea anyway.
I’ve been sick a couple of times in the past 30 years. That was back when I was fishing off the New England coast. Typically it would be after taking some time off in the winter then beating my way offshore. Most winters I fished from Hudson Canyon to the Hague Line.
It’s different for everyone. I’ve never had an issue in rough weather despite lots of winters crossing the Gulf of Alaska. What really did a number on me was the long slow roll of a laden bulker on a summertime passage of the Red Sea. It was the type of roll where you couldn’t tell when you stopped rolling to port and started rolling to starboard. There isn’t much for a horizon to focus on in an engine room which made for some long watches.
