Friday, February 10, 2012

At sea

Monday, February 6


John: Faithful readers of this still-young blog will recall that I mentioned earlier that, while none of us had been seasick, the odds were good that neither with nor the rest of the ship had not faced a real test yet.  That test arrived today, our first full day on the open Atlantic after leaving the Amazon yesterday afternoon. 

The transition from the smooth if murky waters of the Amazon to the open Atlantic was abrupt; in the middle of Sunday afternoon, it was clear that we were back on the open ocean simply from the increased rocking of the ship. With this came widespread seasickness on the ship, all the moreso on Monday as we hit a legitimately rough patch of ocean, with ten-foot swells.  Many students had a characteristic pale "I'm really trying to keep it together" stare, but they were the ones who were able to get out of their cabins at all; Vic had only about half of the students in her class present, and the lines at the dining hall were noticeably thinned out.

The good news is that no in our little traveling party succumbed! I felt a little queasy, but medication helped. Vic was fine, as were Aidan and Maeve. What fine sailors!  

And we're reassured now that we can handle some pretty rough seas; we might still face what our colleague Paul Muldoon described as "the real Master and Commander stuff," but we're made of fairly stern stuff here in cabins 5008 and 5010.  





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