The Poseidon Adventure

 Before we started out on this voyage, Rick had promised me that we wouldn’t be doing any overnight, blue water, off-shore sails. The farther out to sea you are, the higher the waves and the harder it is on someone with seasickness. Unfortunately, the next leg of the trip up the New Jersey shore is not particularly interesting, and Rick has often done a 24 hour sail from Cape May up to Sandy Hook when he is on his own. He thinks that I have done so well so far into our trip that it would be worth attempting an overnight, just to get us farther north and into some more interesting sailing grounds. I feel pretty good about the idea – I’ve been surprised at how well I’ve been tolerating being on the water.  We decide to take a day off to enjoy Cape May, and then go for it.

We go ashore, rent bikes and spend the afternoon at the beach. Cape May is almost irresistibly charming with its Victorian architecture and beach resort feel. We have a wonderful seafood dinner at a place called The Lobster House – a restaurant that obviously caters to tourists, but does it extremely well. The place is huge – it serves 600 people at a time, and there’s still a wait of an hour and a half.  Most of the Cape May commercial fishing fleet---a considerable number of big boats---is docked right beside the restaurant so many patrons dine on the dock only a few feet from the vessels that caught their dinner.

The next morning, we head out into the ocean. I am immediately aware that the ride is quite different from what I had become accustomed to this last week. There are of course, the usual waves, perhaps a bit bigger than in either the Chesapeake or the Delaware Bay, but there is also a sort of general swell that keeps a much slower rhythm and is much more sickening. Within an hour I am green about the gills, and wondering what in the world had possessed me to attempt this trip.

At the same time that I’m feeling queasy, Rick discovers that we are taking in water through the engine. Perfect. Really, this just makes my day. He scurries around the boat, opening this and closing that, and then calls his friend Tim who is somewhere north of us on his own voyage. I’m ever-so-happy to overhear Rick telling Tim that he somehow forgot to bring the manual for the engine along, and does he happen to know how it works? Between the two of them, it is somehow decided that taking in a little water is OK (Are you SERIOUS?) and we continue on our way. The wind is up by now, so the engine can be off for awhile anyway.

It’s a funny thing, seasickness. Its cause has something to do with your brain registering the rise/fall motion from your inner ear, and also registering a stationary scene from your eyes. Apparently the discrepancy between the two creates a problem for your brain and you get nauseated.  This is why you really can’t go below into the cabin of the boat if you tend to get seasick; you need to be outside where you can look out at the horizon. Reading is also a problem, or doing anything where you are looking at something small, like sewing or working at your computer.

I finally give in and take a Zofran pill. This is amazing stuff; an anti-nausea medication that you don’t even have to swallow – it will simply dissolve on your tongue. It starts working almost immediately too. My doctor prescribed a limited number of these, and I’m trying to save them for emergencies.  The Zofran obviously helps, but I’m still so much on the edge that I can’t really do ANYTHING except look off into the horizon.

 It turns out that, on top of seasickness, I have another big problem with sailing: boredom! I can do nothing to distract myself from how close to being sick I am.  How am I going to do this for the next 24 hours? Or the next 3 weeks for that matter? Rick takes pity on me and decides that we will have to split up this leg of the trip after all – a stop in Atlantic City and another one at Barnegat Light, and then finally, Sandy Hook. It’s still an eight hour trip to Atlantic City, and I’m holding on, but just barely.

I’ve never been to Atlantic City, and I’m very curious about the casinos there. Both of us are pretty tired when we finally arrive, so we decide to get a good night’s sleep and go in to shore in the morning to check it out. Come morning, we enjoy an incredible heart-attack breakfast at a little café, and then take a shuttle down town. The Trump Taj Mahal (yes, the Donald) has got to be one of the gaudiest of the casinos, so of course we choose that one. The interior is a vast space, lit by endless rows of slot machines, and filled with the acrid stench of stale cigarette smoke and liquor. There are other games as well, like a craps table and electronic roulette wheel, and a few others we didn’t recognize. At this early hour (10:00am), the clientele are mostly women, quite obviously past retirement age, slumped in front of slot machines which they robotically operate without the least hint of any pleasure taken from the activity .

Rick and I are both curious about the slot machines, but we have to enlist the help of a security guard to figure out how to do it. It is somewhat disappointing to me that the old traditional slot machines with the quarters or silver dollars and matching pieces of fruit no longer exist. In their place are machines with big computer screens. You don’t even use real money – you put your cash into a machine that prints out a voucher, and then you use the voucher in the machine. I suppose they want you to have as little attachment to your money as possible so you’ll gamble away more. We started with $5, and quickly lose more than half. Almost just as quickly we get completely bored. I have to say, I don’t really get it. We proudly walk away with $2.

We head out once again, only this time I’ve taken my Zofran ahead of time. I am hoping that taking the pill before I feel sick will make it more effective, but unfortunately I’m pretty much the same as before. One good thing about having to keep your eye on the horizon is that you are constantly scoping the water; I must have seen five different sets of dolphins. They will get surprisingly close to the boat.  At one point the seagulls start to flock together – they seem to be fighting over something.  We never do figure out what it is.

 There’s a storm brewing, so we get out our rain gear. Although the sky looks very ominous, the “storm” doesn’t really amount to much. I think Rick looks particularly fetching in his rubber overalls though.

Today the engine seems fine, but we have a different kind of problem – the pump for the holding tank is not functioning. To put it delicately, the holding tank stores all of the waste from the head until you are ready to pump it out. Rick waits until we are off shore, and then pumps it out into the sea. That is, he usually does it that way. The pump seems to be seized up, and if we can’t get it to work we’ll be stuck carrying a hot stinking mess all the way to Maine. Did I mention that I’m just a hair’s breadth from tossing my cookies? Thankfully, Rick figures out what is wrong by the end of the day and we pull in to Barnegat Light with an empty tank.

I am mightily discouraged by the past two days on the water. I didn’t enjoy it all that much, and I’m forced to admit that what I like the most about sailing is when we stop. A year ago, when I first decided to take this trip, Rick was so happy that I was interested in sailing with him that he started scoping the internet for larger boats he might buy. Even though we both knew he was very much in the fantasy stage, I worried that he was getting a bit ahead of himself; now I really feel like I’m disappointing him. I could hardly call myself a “first mate” these last two days. I was basically dead weight.

The anchorage at Barnegat Light is well protected, but a bit tricky to get in and out of. The tides create a strong current that can either add or subtract from your speed, so you really do need to plan your entry and exit accordingly. I awake to the sound of our engine starting up – it is 6:30am and Rick decides we need to leave right away. The tossing and turning of the boat in the inlet channel is a truly frightening experience for me – a good 45 minutes of rocking and rolling, real “ride ‘em cowboy” stuff. Cupboard doors flap open, drawers slide out of their sockets, pots and pans fly all around, coffee and coffee grounds spill all over the place; I was half sure we would roll completely over, or get tossed off of the boat. In the end, Tortue comes through it all just fine, but I wouldn’t want to do that again anytime soon.

Today I decide to stop trying to save my Zofran pills for some emergency, and just break down and take a double dose. Why didn’t I do this in the first place? Finally I have an enjoyable trip. Granted, I end up sleeping for a lot of it, but no trace of nausea  - I’m even able to read a book! I’m just going to have to call my doctor and arrange for a refill. I really think that we’ve found the solution, and now I’m looking forward to the rest of the trip.

It’s raining again, and this time we’re in for a good soaking. We head in to Sandy Hook and, after setting anchor, we have a cozy dinner inside the cabin, followed by some very cramped music making.

Tomorrow we take on Manhattan!