Into each life some swells must fall. Since heading south from Fiji, we've had the strongest seas since we began the trip on February 1 (it's March 14th). Many of the passengers are "under the weather", the number of attendees at mealtimes declined dramatically. The Drake Passage portion of the trip was supposed to be like this, but it was quite gentle, actually. Our ship is 500+ feet long, and about 100' wide -- it takes some fairly impressive seas to bounce us around like this.
Kathy has used every trick in her anti-seasickness repertoire, and as of this writing, she retains her stomach contents -- but she's definitely keeping a low profile. As in: "in bed". She gets up. She thinks the better of it. She lies down again. Scott is relatively-immune to seasickness, but is minding his diet (watch the greasy foods).
What does one do to counteract sea sickness, anyway? Vomiting is a favorite: almost anyone can do it, and under the circumstances hardly anyone thinks of it as antisocial behavior. The ship has strategically placed "airsickness" bags on the stairway railings of each deck. They've been getting some use... They look like upside-down popcorn bags -- but -- no popcorn. Anywhere! Gyp!!
Kathy's arsenal includes:
The Relief Band seems like the biggest hocus of them all: an oversided-watch-like device with a pair of electrical connections on the back. It comes with a tube of electrode cream which the user applies to their wrist before attaching it and turning it on. A uniform intervals, the device sends a tiny jolt of electricity into the user's arm, theoretically confusing the normal "you're feeling imbalanced" messages to the brain. At higher settings, it actually makes Kathy's digits move robotically. She'll be sitting around, and her finger will just gently, spontaneously raise itself. Spooky.
But for her, it works -- and it works better than all the other remedies she's tried.
Which brings us to the Joy of Steerage class. A funny thing about cruise ship cabins, the bigger and fancier ones (we'll take big over fancy, given the choice) are invariably located higher in the ship, with the biggest and fanciest forward and aft. Elevation is prestige, we guess. When the ship is pitching and rolling, it is these cabins that get the worst of it. Those of us on the lower decks (preferably in the center of the boat) have the least impact -- literally as well as figuratively.
Steerage class is good. And it's cheaper, too.
The crew has tried to keep onboard activities going as scheduled but with mixed results. The cooking demo (which takes place in a theater an involves... flame) was replaced with a food quiz ("What city in England is known for it's meat pies?" -- Scott was not impressed with the questions).
We've thought of some alternative contents that could be held:
But no, we have "the Mr. and Mrs. Game" (guess how your partner would respond to a series of questions), and "Disney Quiz" ("how Daffy are you, to be in seas like this?").
We hope you've enjoyed this none-too-intellectual web page and hope to return to our regularly informative pages as soon as the weather improves. Which better be soon.
Next stop: Bay of Islands, New Zealand.
