Home » Antarctica » Yo Ho, Yo Ho, a Pirate's Life for Me January 5, 2004

All Antarctic cruises must cross the Drake Passage, the most turbulent sea in the planet. The current whips around the pole, touching all the world's oceans. The swells are grand and foreboding, but also mesmerizing from the stern as we pass over them.

Yo Ho, Yo Ho, a Pirate's Life for Me January 5, 2004

Ttrealtravels
2005-12-25 00:19:24

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All Antarctic cruises must cross the Drake Passage, the most turbulent sea in the planet. The current whips around the pole, touching all the world's oceans. The swells are grand and foreboding, but also mesmerizing from the stern as we pass over them.

The constant yet unpredictable movement made sleep difficult. Breakfast was a challenge. Poor Thomas was sick, although not actively so -- he may not have felt it, but he did better than about a quarter of the ship's passengers. Many didn't make it to breakfast at all, and some left abruptly. The lectures weren't crowded.

I must have sea-faring people in my past. Or maybe it's because I'm on the Aquarius-Pisces cusp, where water and air meet like the horizon. I don't know why I've always been subtly fascinated with the sea. Not in an obvious or compulsory way. The ocean isn't a part of my life, except that it always lurks in the background like an assumption and when it pokes its wavy head into my consciousness, I'm transfixed by its cool stare.

Seasickness effected people very differently. Some vomited a few times and were done with it. Some totally kept to their rooms. A few were walking-wounded like Thomas. My stomach was fine, but I got a little sensation in my head during big swells, rather like my ears were popping on a plane. Pressure, that's all. Sometimes, it was almost fun, like an amusement park ride. But I didn't dare to say such around the ill folks, like some rude cavalier types did. It only made the sick ones feel worse.