Paying the Drake Tax

The Drake Tax is not some new Obama tax on Millennials who watched the old Disney show “Drake and Josh.”  Nor is it a special Canadian tax on the rapper Drake (all of us Drake fans know he’s from Toronto).  Nor is it what they call the tuition bill at Drake University.

Now that we’ve established what it is not, what is it?  It the phrase given the likelihood that a person crossing the Drake Passage will get seasick.

And we paid a heavy dose of the tax.  The famous Drake Passage (remember, if I write “semi-famous” I’ve never heard of it.  If I write “famous” – I have heard of it!) is well-known for having some of the roughest seas in the world.  And even though it was medium level waves, both Carol and I succumbed to seasickness during the roughest part of the journey.

At 3:30am I felt like I was being tossed from bed.  Apparently around 2am we left the sheltered waters of Tierra del Fuego and entered the Drake Passage.  I felt okay until breakfast time – which I skipped after throwing up.  We were being knocked about in our cabin, and we hadn’t put on our anti-seasickness patches – figuring the night before how bad can it be.

I promise you this – before our return across the Drake, we are putting on the patch!

Carol had a roaring headache and a queasy stomach.  We both just laid in bed all morning, unable to concentrate on any diversion.  We missed the presentation on Seabirds of the Southern Ocean by one of the Nat Geo naturalists, and a later presentation on the pre-history and early explorers of Antarctica (pre-Shackleton/pre-Scott).

Finally, feeling somewhat better, I showered, dressed, and left my bride of 28 years in the cabin as I went to lunch.  Big mistake!  A couple of bites of pasta (big mistake!) and I had to excuse myself from the couple I was dining with – so I promptly went and threw up.  Ah, I could stand to skip a few meals anyhow – seasickness is a heckuva weight loss program!

Quite a few people had similar problems.  At dinner (spoiler alert – I was fine after literally losing my lunch), I dined with two other guys whose wives couldn’t make it out of the cabin either.

Carol lay in bed, moaning and groaning about how she’ll never do another ocean cruise again (she got sick on the Pacific Ocean on a large cruise ship when we went to Alaska).  I uploaded some blog posts, and, still a bit queasy went down to the lounge for the Expedition Photography presentation.  I felt better sitting there, and the tips I learned for my camera should help me when shooting penguins, whales, and seals (with my camera, not a gun, in case, dear reader, you are confused.)

Inspirato thoughtfully provided everyone with ginger chews, which tastes like ginger snap cookies and helps fight nausea.

By the time National Geo’s top whale photographer/researcher Flip Nicklin did his presentation on a life with whales, I felt good enough to drink a lot of water and nibble on some pretzels.  Flip showed a picture from Kaikoura!  Meanwhile, I kept bringing Carol some ginger cookies, which helped her a little bit.  She never rallied until around 9pm, when some diet coke and then some bullion soup helped.

I took some photos of seabirds following the ship – I thought they were albatrosses, but looking at my nature book, it turns out they were a Southern Giant Petrel (wing span greater than six feet), a Cape Petrel (smaller wing span on this bird, so it probably wasn’t fully grown), and a Kelp Gull (which I did not mistake for an albatross).

I was fine during dinner, as I ordered the veal – figuring it was the blandest, least risky meal on the menu.  I joked, “well, here goes nothing” to nervous laughter from my tablemates – but I didn’t turn green or need to run.  I certainly skipped the wine or beer, sticking to just ice water all day.

After dinner I alternatively roamed the ship and checked on Carol, who was starting to rally a bit (although she is still emphatic that this is our last cruise, unless we do a river cruise).  At one point, I was standing forward up on the sixth deck, and got sprayed by water – all the way up top of the ship!

I talked with a couple from Dallas for a bit, and then it was time to clean up the cabin and head to sleep.  The waves had died down considerably by then, although it still was not easy walking around the ship.  Carol was feeling much better by bedtime, but she had no problems sleeping.

It’s now Tuesday morning and she is up and moving.  Hopefully breakfast goes well for both of us.