I have always struggled with seasickness. Over the years, two specific voyages have etched themselves into my memory—not for the scenery, but for the sheer, green-tinged misery of the experience.
The first was on my eighteenth birthday in Mauritius. To celebrate the milestone, our family chartered a yacht for a cruise. It was a choppy, restless day, and as the boat pitched, my stomach began its own rhythmic descent into darkness. I reached a point of such profound nausea that I actually had fantasies of diving overboard just to end the motion. I desperately wanted to be sick, hoping for that legendary moment of relief, but my body refused to cooperate.
I was sitting doubled over, staring at the deck in a state of absolute "suffer-fest," when a well-meaning hand thrust a large plate directly under my nose. It was piled high with pungent tuna sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs. That was the breaking point. The smell was the final sensory assault I couldn't survive. I scrambled for the back of the ship and delivered an epic, birthday-defining spray into the Indian Ocean.
Ten years later, I found myself on a ferry from Israel to Egypt. The Mediterranean was in a foul mood, and the ship was tossing violently. This time, I wasn't alone in my suffering; the entire deck was a gallery of green faces. I retreated to the stern to reenact my eighteenth birthday, joining a line of fellow passengers who were all projectile vomiting over the railing.
What sticks in my mind most vividly, however, isn't the sickness—it’s the gulls. An entire flock of them hovered in our wake, shrieking with delight. They weren't just following us; they were diving into the sea to feast on our collective misery. It was a sobering reminder of the natural order: while we were experiencing the lowest point of our human existence, the seagulls were having the best lunch of their lives.
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