My first night on a ship I couldn't sleep... AND THAT WAS ONLY THE EAST RIVER. Then I started to realize it was all mental (I was terrified of getting sea sick before I even got on) and I was fine.

Then we got to the Mediterranian. One minute it's like glass, and the next it's got 10 and 20 foot swells and our ships taking 20 degree rolls. The 110 degree (steam turbine propulsion) engine room sucked. People were getting sick left and right, but once I realized that the ship was moving (and not me), it wasn't the problem. Hell, I dared it to get worse. People make the mistake of thinking they're drunk and that they're the ones moving... but I just had to remember it was the enviroment moving around me.

BIG ole' wave that hit our training ship.

Oh, it was fun...

I have spent one 6 month stretch at sea and one 2 month. I do don't get sea sick I get Sea Drunk. I get light headed and silly like being drunk. Oddly I can't drink alcohol when I am at sea or I will barf. I love being on the ocean I can't wait till I retire and live on the ocean. I am gonna be a 55 year old born-again pirate.

The longest I've spent on a ship: 5 days

Bulkhead disease is a crude translation of Spanish seamen slang, "mamparitis". It refers to the consequences of being aboard for many months without landing. Not every seaman suffers it and each individual suffers it in a different way -but usually implies one or more of the following: depression, odd behavior, eccentricity, extremely nitpicking behavior, aggressiveness and usually accompanies a severe lack of performance. Put in short, seamen go crazy, and the longer the stay, the more likely to suffer it and the worst it turns. It's the reason why ships used to have handcuffs and a gun aboard for whenever a seaman "went nuts"... The risk starts after 3 months.

This syndrom used to hit hard tanker crews, as it was usual that they would stay aboard for 9 months or more, never landing. Now insurors' pressure has more or less forced to give a land leave each 6 months.

The longest I've been at sea is 47 days. But that was on a 37' sailboat.
I remember how bummed out I was when I first saw the lights of the Azores and then the Iberian coast. I didn't want to leave the little universe that our boat had become and have to deal with a bunch of random egos, noise, rules, and expectations. I liked my simple little world of air and sea and birds.

"...Depression, odd behavior, eccentricity, extremely nitpicking behavior, aggressiveness and usually accompanies a severe lack of performance" - I felt it all very acutely for an afternoon or two. Then I saw how my 3 other shipmates were all going through the same thing to one degree or another. No one wanted to get back to the beach.
Well, there's only one cure for La Maladie De Bernard - Grog.

A safety meeting was called, and an epic drunk was motioned, debated, and passed by Unanimous Decree.

We stayed hove-to for three days, 220 miles from Gibraltar, while we drank the last gallons of Capitan Morgan, Grand Mariner, Cutty Sark, Skyy, and Lucky Lager we had stashed on the boat. I don't remember much: blasphemies shouted to the wind...Dionysian rites of hubris and sacrificial revelry amid drastic seawater bong hits...The video isn't much help either.
I woke up with a lot of bruises, some minor abrasions, and a brain that had detached from my skull somehow and now sent out waves of pain and dismay whenever I tried to move enough to bungie my eyeballs and tongue from the searing, swirling deck.
Then I realized I had a woodie and that funky smell was land and that the idea of Barcelona in a couple days was actually pretty cool.











http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Moitessier

Good god man, I thought I'd been through some shit. I've crawled through rattlesnake infested rockpiles, cleaned sloppy turds off of fast food restaurant bathroom floors. Been robbed a few times, beat a few times, had guns stuck in my face. Worked a variety of shit jobs.

The poo water is more than I could deal with though. I think I'd be forced to swim to the beach.

The longest I've ever stayed on a boat was two nights. Sailed and camped up the California coast with my stepfather. I've always been told it's folly to go on a boat without alcohol. Kind of like lighting a tobacco pipe with a lighter. You just don't do it.