Malaise Goes To Sea

"Well, we've been sick on passage plenty of times," I said to Alisa before we left Bonaire. "So this shouldn't be different."

I was referring to the fever that Eric was running the day before we left, and the barking cough that has both boys sounding like truants from the isolation ward.

Alisa is sick as well, apparently having relapsed into the bug that had her down for a few weeks already. I'm doing better than anyone else, but my immune system is getting tired of fighting off the viral gifts that my kids keep giving me, and the ear infection from all my wonderful swims in Bonaire is reasserting itself.

So it's a particularly listless crew aboard Galactic for this jaunt across the Caribbean. Eric spent the first day of the passage comatose beneath the saloon table. And it turns out that being sick sick - like fever and cough sick - isn't the same as being seasick when it comes to getting through a day at sea. Not better or worse. Just different.

As a part of the Cuban entry formalities we expect to be boarded by a doctor who will take everyone's temperature. I've been joking a lot about being denied entry based on our collective low-grade fevers, but had to stop. The boys didn't get the humor, and wanted to know exactly where we would go if we were denied entry. As if I know!

On the bright side, Eric hasn't been seasick on this trip. And we're having a ripper sail. Beam reaching, much of the time above 8 knots. We are rapidly pulling Cuba towards us from over the horizon.

(Both Alisa and I have noticed the lack of swell here in the Caribbean. Even with winds in the low 20s, you just don't seem to get a big sea setting up.)

I am struck once again that sailing is far and away the best way to travel. This same floating home that has taken us to the Falklands and South Georgia is about to carry us to Cuba. And we're taking it with us as well, meaning that we'll temporarily have our home and all of our everyday material goods with us in that new-to-us land. I can't imagine a better way of seeing the world.

Nor, right now, can I think of a better way to unplug from the world. After a few weeks of watching the unfolding prologue of America's descent into Pussy Grabbing for Greatness, it is sweet relief to sail away so completely as this.

We expect to be in Cuba in a few days.

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This post was sent via our high-frequency radio as we're far from internet range. Pictures to follow when we reach internet again. We can't respond to comments for now, though we do see them all!

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