SV *Starrider* Gemini 105Mc: August 2008

This initial post is long, sorry! Read on, I promise it will get better. I felt it was important to discuss that issue that keeps many of us from ever cruising the wide open sea's, seasickness. Yea, no one wants to talk about it, yea macho men don't get seasick, bla, bla, bla. Without precautions, seasickness would have devastated our vacation (maybe even our lives). This is the third season we have owned our new to us Gem. We figured we have all the bugs out and confident we could go on an extended voyage (as time permits). During our vacation we sailed over 550 miles, a new record for us. From our home port, near Atlantic City NJ, we headed straight out the ocean to Montauk Point LI. This was the first time Meg and I sailed out in the ocean at night. The first day did not go well for me. I had the worst seasickness of my life. I decided to try the patch and found out it does not work for me. We had a dry run with the patch a few weeks ago and it seemed to work. Usually after the first couple of sails in the ocean, I get my "sea legs" and do not get sick. But understand I am one of those people that gets car sick if I am not driving, so when sailing in the ocean my stomach always feels a little queasy, but usually do not vomit. Normally if the ocean is rough, I will pop a Dramamine. Before this journey I went to my doctor and received prescriptions for the patch and scopace (oral form of the patch). I felt better if I laid down in the aft cabin to sleep it off. Even after a couple hours of sleep, as soon as I tried to take the helm, I was at the stern steps paying homage to Neptune. Tried several of these sleep cycles, and it was no help, I was pretty much useless. Meg kept trying to get me to eat or drink something and I refused. Lucky I had programmed the GPS ahead of time with all the waypoints, and the GPS was guiding the autopilot. All Meg had to do was watch the radar for other boats, and make sure we stayed on the GPS course. Lucky she was reluctantly wearing the patch, she had no symptoms of seasickness the entire trip. Around 12 AM, Meg said should could no longer stay awake and I had to take the helm (poor gal had it for around 12 hours at this point). I agreed and sent her off for much needed rest. She told me that several pods of dolphins had visited her, I thought that was pretty weird for that to happen at night. She said they came alongside the boat, rather then the bow to check her out. Now at the helm, my seasickness was worse then ever. Between sailing downwind in 6 foot seas, the screecher stretched across the bow, obstructing the view ahead, this just made the seasickness worse. I found there was no way I could sit at the helm watching the radar and chartplotter, I was instantly hanging off the Starboard side getting sick. I am sure I would have went overboard if I was not clipped in and wearing a harness. I found that if I was sitting out from under the cockpit, to the extreme starboard side, I felt a little better. I think with the wind blowing in my face and able to see around the screecher sail helped. This was a moonless night, so my seasickness had no horizon to calm it down. As crappy as I felt, vomiting at least twice per hour, I was enjoying the view. The stars were fantastic, now 40 miles from the nearest land, there was no light pollution to wash them out. I was also amazed the distance I could see ships, I had to keep double checking the radar. The lights from distant ships could be seen for 5 miles. But I was still counting down the hours Meg could take the helm. After sunrise, Meg agreed to take the helm. I was still sick, and would not eat or drink anything. After 4 more hours of sleep, I was finally starting to feel a little better. After not eating or drinking for 28 hours it was time to try. Tried some pretzels, and they seemed to stay down. Then some ginger ale, still stayed down. Then I took a scopace seasickness pill. Happy to say for the entire trip thereafter, NO seasickness, not even a queasy stomach. We were making good time, but would have arrived at Montauk point at dark. Neither of us felt confident having never been there before, to navigate it at night. So we headed into Shinnecock inlet for the night. Avoid this inlet, the tropical depressions offshore turned this inlet into a fury of breakers. With the sails up and the engine at full throttle, we managed to get into the inlet without getting pooped. The Coast Guard was rescuing a sailboat caught between the breakers while we were entering the inlet. We decided to leave at daybreak, hopefully the breakers would be smaller then. No such luck, they were still breaking everywhere, in the channel and out. We decided to go for it, and were lucky for the first 1/2 mile. Then wham, As we were climbing a 10 foot swell, the top part of it broke over the bow. The water went over the master stateroom windshield, then the helm windshield, and finally (gasp) over the cockpit roof! As the water was going over the cockpit windshield, it looked like one of those front loading washing machines. As the water went over the cockpit roof, water flooded me and the helm instruments through the closed sunroof hatches. There was so much water, it went through the open helm window, drenched my GPS and everything on the top of the fridge was soaked (some electronics charging there were lost). I looked back, and Meg was soaked also, she was sitting on top of the engine compartment, and the water coming over the back of the cockpit roof drenched her. The cockpit drained in about 20 seconds. We never even spoke a word to each other, we concentrated on keeping the bow into the waves and on course. We feared if the waves hit us on the beam, it may roll us. Lucky we had the sails down as we were dead against the wind (which made the breakers even worse). Then we noticed something flapping up front. Nice, the newly made cover for the master stateroom window was hanging on by only a few snaps. There was no way either of us was going up on the deck in these conditions. We decided if we timed the waves just right, Meg could pop open the stateroom hatch and retrieve the cover before it was lost overboard. If our timing was wrong, a breaking wave would flood the boat. Meg was quick and we saved the cover from a watery grave. Amazingly the force of the wave was so strong it ripped some of the snaps from the sunbrella cover. I was surprised as the cover was sewn with a hem, those snaps ripped through 3 layers of material! Fortunately other waves did not have the force to go over the top of the cockpit. We safely rounded Montauk point, and was greeted by 25 knot winds on our beam. We reefed the jib and set a course for 3 mile Harbor. We were pointing at this time with waves occasionally coming over the deck. The wind was 28 knots apparent at this time and we were making a brisk 6-7 knots upwind. Here is a video of a small part of our trip. Hint; Click the video window twice and a new window will open up. At the bottom of the new video window select watch in high quality.

While at 3 Mile harbor we loaded our west marine bikes and explored northern LI. We picked up some water (green Jug) to top off our water tanks.

We anchored for the SIXTEENTH ANNUAL IMPROMPTU NORTHEAST GEMINI RENDEZVOUS. Gems started arriving the next day, this was our first rendezvous and we met some great folks.

After watching some fantastic fireworks, we retired. The next day we followed Pat & Pat of SV Camelot to Block Island. We anchored next to each other on the east side of Great Salt Pond. Pat and Pat are seasoned Gemini sailors and we both learned much from them.

Meg and I rented this POS motor scooter to explore Block Island, and we had fun playing tourist.

Below are some various pictures we took. Block Island is not overdeveloped, and much of it was left in a natural state. We certainly want to visit here again.