OK....I promise this is my last massive whinge about swells and seasickness..for a while anyway :-) But whinging can be very therapeutic and cleansing so I feel it is a moral obligation to myself to let my whingey, whiney self run free for a while.
'Finding Nemo' is scarred to me forever! I will never watch it with the same childlike ignorance again. Why.....because of the bloody East Australian Current. Remember how Marlin and Dory ride the EAC from Q'land to Sydney to find Nemo, and they rock it with Crush the turtle and it's all like 'Whoa dude" and totally cool like a theme park ride.
Yeah....it might be that way if you're heading from North to South. Here is the story of banging into this southerly heading current from the opposite direction with a south westerly swell behind you.
It's crap! Totally unpleasant crap! ("Oscar - crap is a naughty word and you are not allowed to use it. I am allowed to use it because I am an adult and I have suffered and it is the most polite swear world out of the plethora of swearwords I would rather be using right now"). The swell and wind induced sea on top collides with the EAC and cause tall, pitchy, confused, rolly waves. The southerly flowing current also reduces your boat speed of 6 knots to 3-4 knots overground. So it can not only make you feel sick, but it makes sure you feel sick for a long, long time. Sadistic b@stard!!!!
For me seasickness starts with a massive onset of fatigue, followed by a cold clammy sweat, which then mixes with the moist salty air to make skin feel slimy, itchy, moist, dirty, and sticky. Then the low-grade nausea sets in. Then the fatigue increases. There was one nightwatch I had to wake Mike early as I almost had no energy to even lift my arms. Sailing in Port Phillip Bay can not prepare you for the cumulative effect of swell induced tiredness. Tiredness makes you more susceptible to sea sickness. It's just Blugh!!!!
The worst I have felt was heading from Pittwater to Port Stephens. A long, long overnighter of Blugh! Heading past Newcastle at dusk/nightime is actually pretty bizarre. Massive tankers are anchored out at sea in a long row up the coast. It's like a graveyard of tankers all brightly lit up. It was about here that I felt my most miserable and shared my upbeat facebook entry that "I'm so effing sick of effing swell that if we slam into a tanker and effing die I don't effing care"!!!!! I was only joking a little bit.
So, the Chunder Thunder Index has a new rating of 8.5 - which is when misery and despair sets in and you have a little cry all by yourself and think horrible boat smashing thoughts.
However, I do have to grudgingly admit that even though I may have considered slamming MOLI into a Newcastle tanker, that there were some really cool things during that overnight sail. There was no moon and minimal light pollution so the Mily Way looked amazing. There were shooting stars galore, and over to the west way out at sea were huge flashes of orange lightning from the Cumulonimbus clouds that had earlier glowed spectacularly at sunset. Even sailing past the Newcastle tankers was cool as they looked so eerie and surreal.
However, immediately upon arriving in Port Stephens I put in an urgent, Express Post delivery on-line order for a Relief Band. It's worn like a watch and is meant to prevent seasickness by sending 4 second electrical pulses through your wrist via your median nerve to the brain which has a rebalancing effect, normalizes nerve messages to the stomach and reduces symptoms of nausea. I was 100% sceptical, but so utterly, completely and totally over feeling massively crap that I threw down $200 - and zapped myself on the next big overnighter from Port Stephens to Coffs Harbour. Seriously, I had it on near maximum setting and every 4 seconds half my hand and middle finger would vibrate from electrical shock. But it seemed to work, and a little constant electrocution was way more enjoyable than what I had previously been experiencing!!
So....why is Finding Nemo ruined for me???? Because, they never, EVER explain how Dory, Nemo and Marlin would have battled the EAC heading back North. Even if they hugged the coast line to avoid the EAC it would have taken them years. Marlin and Dory would be dead of old age. Actually - so would Nemo! Totally 100% dead! Hmpfffff! And I thought this movie was factually correct!!! :-P
Oh - I also found an awesome wave map on the BOM site. You click on the 'Marine and Ocean' icon on the home page and then the green 'Interactive Weather and Wave Maps' icon. You can access a map that animates wave height over several days, and clearly shows how massive 10m+ swells (I would vomit and die in those - even if I was constantly electrocuting myself) develop in the Southern Ocean and then slam into the west coast of Tasmania and funnel up the east coast of Australia to Q'land.