Normally I get seasick on small boats out at sea. But it was
my wife who was stressed out that she might get sick, so nervous and so anxious
that she couldn’t enjoy any of our time on vacation in Hawaii.
“There’s really nothing for you to worry about,” I told her.
“You didn’t get sick on the boat ride out to the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor.
The boat ride out to the snorkeling spot is the exact same thing.”
I practically dragged her from our hotel to the dock. Once
we were aboard, she realized quite quickly that it was the exact same thing as
the boat ride at Pearl Harbor. Only it wasn’t the exact same thing for me.
Wait, what? I’m sick?
My stomach turned for shore as soon as my lead foot hit the
deck.
“Maybe you were right,” my wife said. “Maybe there’s really
nothing for me to worry about.”
Meanwhile I was freaking out. I thought of all the ways I
could jump off the boat without spoiling the experience for my wife and
11-year-old son.
“This is gonna be fun,” I said as the boat pulled away. So
much for getting off.
I had three hours ahead of me at sea -- one hour for
snorkeling and two more for a follow-up lunch on the ocean. My stomach would
make me pay.
Meet the antagonist of the story -- the catamaran. The
catamaran is a multi-hulled vessel that has two parallel hulls of equal size.
Experts say that the dual hulls allow for faster speeds and a more comfortable
ride with less heeling (when a boat leans over to one side) than a boat with a
single hull.
Sounds great, right? But even Goldfinger, arguably the most
sinister villain in the James Bond movie franchise, initially appeared ever so
kind and loving as he coddled his pet cat on his lap. How cute.
Catamarans, as we’ll soon find out, can exhibit (in other
words, will exhibit) a slightly
unsettling (in other words, alarmingly inhumane) hobbyhorse motion.
Up, down. Up, down. I dubbed the boat Goldfinger, as it
slowly tried to break me.
“Do you expect me to throw up?” I asked Goldfinger.
“No, Mr. Bond,” the boat answered (it really did). “I expect
you to die.”
My plan: Get off that horrible bobbing craft and into that
beautiful, calm water before anyone else.
“You forgot your snorkeling gear,” my wife yelled.
Oh yeah, I
thought, snorkeling. That’s why we’re
here.
The snorkeling was amazing. Even my wife and son, who were
initially alarmed by the idea of the masks blocking their nasal passages, soon
began to enjoy the experience. There were hundreds of fish and huge sea turtles
to see. All of you who highly recommended it were so right about it being a
must-try activity. But were any of you going to mention the part about drinking
seawater?
I swallowed a fish-tank-sized gulp of the Pacific Ocean. Not
amazing. And not an elixir for my seasickness. The water was still moving, too.
My body was going up and down in that hobbyhorse motion, and I don’t even have
hulls.
My plan: Get back onto Goldfinger, at all costs. I
practically held my wife and kid underwater as I used them as anchors to push
myself back onboard. Then I told the captain I needed a boat to pick me up and
bring me to shore immediately. He told me that wasn’t an option even though I
told him I needed it.
“No ejector seat to shore?” I said under my breath as I
turned away. “You’re joking.”
I could almost hear him respond like Q in those Bond movies,
“I never joke about my work, 007.”
Once everyone was back on the boat and lunch was served, my
wife asked if she could get me anything.
“Dramamine,” I said. “Shaken, not stirred.”
Then I left the party for the vacant bow of Goldfinger. I
had a boat to destroy.
No Dramamine, and two hours later I destroyed nothing. There’s
no climax to this story -- no exciting James Bond action set pieces or witty
Bond one-liners. I suffered, plain and simple. I overcame nothing. I was
miserable. It’s been a week and I still feel that dreadful hobbyhorse motion.
So I highly recommend snorkeling to anyone who hasn't tried it. There's really nothing for you to worry about.
-August 2014
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