A few words on seasickness. Being seasick, regardless of your meds, is both frustrating and miserable. It’s a hangover without the party. And no amount of aspirin is going to help it. Think about getting food poisoning and vertigo simultaneously. Although my nausea was relatively mild, the endless tossing of the boat made every movement and every activity an effort and life aboard unbearably frustrating. Every additional stimulus was just one more shock to an already overwhelmed nervous system, and subsequently every conversation, every meal, every smell was just another reason to remain in bed. For two days I remained in my cabin, emerging only to nick fruit from the galley or to brace myself for a potentially messy piss all over the head next door. By the third day in the Drake, the morning where I woke up at 4 AM to swells that sent anything unsecured in my cabin sailing across the room, I had reached my breaking point.

I couldn’t even talk to people without wanting to just sail into a stream of obscenities and lamentations about the conditions of this passage.

But in enduring that passage I gained something.

First, I can now say that I have rounded Cape Horn and the tip of Tierra del Fuego. I’ll be piercing my other ear any day now as is required by all sailors worth their salt. Sorry, Tassy, the nipple will have to wait until I cross the equator.

More importantly, however, I learned that I have neither the constitution nor the commitment to ever be a sailor. Despite the romance of the open sea and the experiences that it might present, I doubt I will ever set foot on another ship. At least not on any ship that will be sailing for any extended length of time or across any notorious waters.

I have immense respect for those who make their life on the seas. And in much the same way as my father looks at my comfort in the vertical world, I look at their comfort in those rolling waves.

I respect it. But they can keep it.

Of course, you can call me out on that in a few months when I’m in Sydney or Cape Town or Cairns and reading brochures for cage trips with great whites or extended diving excursions on the Great Barrier Reef to find whale sharks.

It’s amazing what I’m willing to endure to see something that might just eat me.