Meters to Spare and Buckets to Follow
We get off to a suspiciously good start, which in sailing is usually the universe clearing its throat before doing something cruel. We spend the first hours locked in a polite but determined fistfight with Gosh, the boat that came in second in race one. It’s skippered by Olli and Otto, two young sailors who look like they were born knowing which way the wind would turn next Tuesday. On our boat they are called the Pretty Boys. They know exactly what they’re doing, which makes it all the more satisfying when, at the second mark, we hold our course and they are forced to tack in order to make it around the buoy. We slide through with meters to spare. Meters, I’ve learned, are the nautical equivalent of gloating. We stay on their tail for days, and they start to wonder if we have attached a tow line to their boat.
While this minor triumph is unfolding, my body decides it has had enough of solidarity. My newfound companion, seasickness, returns with a vengeance, like an old roommate who still has a key. From this point on, my days fall into a reliable pattern. I wake up, throw up, climb out of my bunk, throw up again, get dressed as fast as humanly possible, and make it on deck. There I perform my duties to the best of my ability, which mostly involves running to the low side of the boat to throw up discreetly, then returning to look attentive. When it’s time to eat, I go below, where the entire process is repeated in reverse: undress, throw up, retire to my bunk, and briefly consider the life choices that led me here.
This routine continues for about a week, varying only in intensity. Eventually, I acquire what sailors call “sea legs,” which in my case simply means that the food begins to stay inside my body, as nature originally intended.
Just as I start to feel smug about this accomplishment, another crew member falls ill. This is not seasickness, which we all now treat like a personality quirk, but something more ambitious—possibly food poisoning or a stomach bug he picked up in Punta. Our veterinarian-turned-medic monitors him closely, consulting online shore-based doctors, which feels both reassuring and deeply unsettling. When it becomes clear that David is in danger of dehydration, the decision is made to deliver him to a hospital.
We alter course for Las Palmas in the Canary Islands and arrive in the middle of the night, greeted by an ambulance and the police, which is rarely a sign you’ve had a successful vacation. We are not allowed to step ashore, though a few people sneak off anyway, just long enough to later say, at parties, “I’ve been to Las Palmas.” Once David departs in the ambulance, we slip our lines and return to racing.
The detour drops us from second place to fifth—not devastating, but a pity nonetheless. Still, we console ourselves with the knowledge that we lost those places honorably, while vomiting, and with at least one international medical evacuation to show for it.