Random things I learned at sea (in no particular order)
- It is utterly mesmerising. It is in constant movement and never looks the same two seconds in a row. It is always interacting - with the wind, the light, the clouds, the sun. When the sunlight broke through the clouds and tickled the surface, it was a beautiful party that I felt like I wanted to dive into. I can see why people fall in love with ocean travel.
- It is really boring (yes, I know, but I'm asking readers to do the grown up thing and hold two contradictory facts in our heads at the same time) It is endlessly dull and grey. When we were miles, hundreds of miles, from land, and all around was grey, I craved some other life. For days there were no birds, no life visible above the waves. For days there were no other vessels on the horizon. I can see why people go mad at sea for weeks on end.
- There is a scale for sea swell. If you're interested, it's here It goes from 1 to 9. On day three when it got to 7 (high seas, 6-9m swell) little packets of sick bags appeared on each landing of the stairs. There were certainly times when walking was harder than you might imagine, we were woken up in the night from the rocking and rolling, and when nausea kicked in. The highest we got was a Force 9 wind and a sea swell of 8 - very high. I was very thankful to be on a modern large ship with stabilisers and ginger ale. And in awe of those who choose to travel the same ocean on something much smaller
It's very deep - at times there were thousands of metres of water below us. But the ship can also sail perfectly happily in quite shallow water as it approaches ports. On those days when I saw no other life, there was, of course plenty of it. It was simply below the surface. When else might I miss the life that is abundant, but below a surface?
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