Somewhere on the Pond

The first few days of this trip have been kinda brutal on me. We had weather as soon as we rounded Cape Flattery and exited the Straits of Juan De Fuca into the Pacific. From the Cape, we headed out into the open ocean and immediately got slammed around while we tried to outrun a low-pressure system that was turning to the north. We ended up heading south along the coast for about 2-3 days before turning more to the West. The captain is a weather fanatic, so he had it all planned out so that we would avoid another low pressure system and have it move around behind us, leaving open waters and clear skies for the the remainder if the week. It worked, but the first 72 hours were brutal. This boat indeed has "cork-like" motion and leaves much to be desired in the way of smoothness. Apparently the boat was designed to cross the Gulf of Alaska and hit some of the small fishing villages that lie on shallow rivers and inlets.

So, on day two, I found myself somewhat hungry and thought I might be able to keep something down. So I chose the easiest item on the menu, sweep potatoes. All was good and it appeared that I was not going to be seeing them again... Until I had to run up to the pilothouse for a minute that turned into 5. I had to sign the logbook after my rounds, which only takes a few seconds, but the chief asked me to sign some papers and it took longer than usual. It was dark out by this point and having no visual horizon to please my inner ear, I started to feel it coming on. After I signed the papers, I began to head down the 2 flights of stairs. I entered the head, closed the door and before I could turn around and aim for the direction of the toilet, it all came out, spitting up sweet potatoes all over the backside of the door and wall. It was like something straight out of a Jackson Pollock collection. I could only laugh as I cleaned up the mess and went on with my evening.

By today, (day 4), I'm feeling much better and my inner ear has found some peace. The seas have become less "confused" and have some consistency to them. If I have my head buried in a cupboard looking for a hidden spice, I might feel a little queasy, but it seems that I've adapted. The only problem I face now, is that for the past 4 days, I've slept so much that now I can't. I could go ride the bike and get some exercise, but I'm not quite there yet.

The last I checked, we were about 200 miles off of the coast of Oregon, and heading on a course towards Hawaii (~242 degrees). We are holding about 8 knots consistently, so at this rate we should be there in something like 10 years.. At least that how it feels. More realistically, we are looking at approximately 8 more days of big ocean boredom before seeing the wonderful sight of land.

Tonight's dinner: pork ribs, mashed potatoes and broccoli.

 

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