Life at Sea Part 2: Seasickness

We have completed the first leg of our voyage from Bremerhaven, Germany to Plymouth, England, and it feels more like a fever dream looking back. I have never been seasick before. I spent every free moment aboard sleeping to try to ward it off as much as possible. There were good moments and bad ones. The worst resulted in a colleague cleaning up the stairwell, which really brings you closer as a community. I owe him a beer. The nausea, lethargy, and dazed sensations are hard to live with, but I think I have some strategies for this next leg of the trip to Porto, Portugal.

We are setting sail very soon, so I will write a bit more while I still have internet. My roommate and I have been watching a lot of movies since we have both been pretty sick, which has maybe been the only positive of laying in bed for 15 hours a day. I am learning all the German words for the ropes and actually remembering them, the joys of knowledge acquisition. Plymouth has an interesting harborside old town that gives the feel of what early explorers might have felt looking to leave their small island. There are some quaint alleys lined with cobbles that lead to fairy stores, secret gardens, and picturesque coffee shops. We were hit with a storm in the English Channel, which sent us bouncing below deck like a pinball machine. We saw dolphins and were soaked clean through by rogue waves. I was up the mast, in the rigging for about four hours the other day, folding sails. There is much work to be done on a sailing vessel and much still to see.