Sea sickness – written by Julius

Before I started this journey, I wished not to become seasick. This wish doesn’t come true, as I had to discover the next few days.
But at first some information about sea-sickness:
It´s a changing-process in the brain. The familiar surrounding of humans is the solid ground on the earth, which doesn´t sway and which is save as the normal condition by our brain. Now we´re at sea and the surroundings change for our brains completely. We have swell and our eyes can only see the never ending horizon but our brains perceive no movement. The duration of sea sickness only depends on how fast the changing process in your brain is.
I´m wondering if it was coincidence that I had to give a paper about seasickness. At least the people called me “expert of seasickness”. I expect that I became more seasick because of the knowledge about seasickness. My family gave me some advice about the medical treatment for example eating ginger or drinking peppermint tea.
My seasickness began after Cuxhaven. I was one of the first people on board of the “Thor Heyerdahl” who became seasick. I felt queasy and tired and when I went downstairs it got worse. The best choice was to sit on the poop deck and watch the horizon. When you were busy it also got better, because your brain doesn´t care about the swell. For me the standing watch at night was very hard. It was a mental exertion not to fall asleep.
Sometimes someone came, who wasn’t already seasick to feed us with rusk or soup and take care of us. Unfortunately I ate too little, although the food the mess stewards created was the best at this time. It was lovely to see how considerate they were. Sorry for all the people who weren´t seasick. Many guys hung over the sea rails to puke or how we called it ‚feed the fish‘.
Safety was also a big aspect especially at night:. We picked all the seasick crew in their life belt in order to prevent the worst of happening: To go overboard.
After four days it was over and I hoped not to become seasick again. At first this plan went right and I enjoyed the following days as much as I could. But after we left Falmouth harbour the weather changed drastically. The wind blew with wind force 8, we had a lot of squalls and the waves felt about 6 meters high. Because of this the whole story started all over again within a few minutes. It took about two days until it was over.
The interesting thing is: Not everybody became seasick. There were a few people who didn´t feel anything. In this case their brains changed very quickly.