Seasickness and sailors' stories

Once the Peace Ark had passed the Strait of Malacca and sailed into the Indian Ocean, the ship began to pitch and roll. Hard.

Luckily, I didn't feel seasick. On the contrary, I found the unusual motion very interesting. I felt like a slice of lemon in a cup of tea constantly stirred by a spoon. Sometimes I was scooped up to the surface and then pushed to the bottom again.

I was one of the lucky few unaffected by seasickness. An interpreter in the cabin next to mine told me that she once vomited 12 times in one day and sometimes she couldn't even hold out long enough to get to the toilet. "I had to carry a plastic bag with me all day long," she said. "My stomach was absolutely empty, but I still felt sick. I couldn't do anything but lie on my bunk."

The higher the deck, the greater the roll; on really choppy days, dozens of pale-faced victims gathered on the lower decks, with plastic bags in one hand and tissues in the other. Sometimes experienced mariners told scary tales, saying that in really bad weather even the rats would get sick. "They walked on the deck like they were drunk and jumped into the water," one told me.

Even though the rolling and pitching didn't make me want to commit suicide, the unceasing vibration was inconvenient.

My cabin was on the ship's second-highest deck. It affords the best ocean views, but is also subject to most furious rolling.

The metal furniture creaked all day and night and drawers flew out if you forgot to lock them. I was awoken in the middle of the night several times because it felt as though I was being thrown out of my bunk.

If you took a shower on a bad day, there would be a flood in the shower room and you had to jump to dodge the dirty water that came rushing at you as the floor tilted alarmingly.

Once I dropped my water bottle on the deck and it rolled away down the slant of the deck, gathering speed as it went. I chased it desperately to the stern, and watched as it described a beautiful arc in the air before disappearing into the waves.