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I had a very hard day at sea today. A lobster clamped onto my finger so hard I screamed like a little girl. She got me as I tripped and fell while reaching for the gauge. It was a waste of motion reaching for the gauge because she had eggs, and therefore needed to be thrown back overboard even if she was big enough to keep. We had to drag for three trawls…That means the buoys that mark each end of the string of pots came off (probably some government boat cut them off with their propellers) and we have to drag a heavy chain to try to catch the rope, i.e.; it takes a hell of a lot more time and energy to do the trawl. The boat was rocking in a real weird snappy way. It almost shot me overboard twice. The weather started getting rough (cue Gilligan’s Island tune) around the eighth hour of the day and continued until the thirteenth -this very hard day was also a very long day.
But, do you know what? This could have been a lot worse. It could have been a day like the days I’ve had as a deckhand before a little five dollar box of over the counter pills made my life a whole lot easier. Thank you Bonine! Sea sickness severely sucks…there’s a tongue twister. I know, I’ve experienced it many times…many ways. I tried many remedies. Nothing worked -except Bonine.
Fishing has always been my "fall back." I’m a carpenter / contractor. My construction business crashed and burned right along with the housing market crash. Because I build houses instead of cars, for some reason I can’t expect any government help. So, I have to help myself. It just means I have to work a lot harder, and believe me, construction work is pretty hard -fishing? Harder. But it doesn’t matter that it’s even for less money. I’m grateful to have the work and the income. It even has a lot of good points, and as the months go by I get more conditioned and it is getting easier and even enjoyable in a lot of ways.
The final conditioning hurdle that I got over was sea sickness. I’ve worked through many fishing trips where I’ve been so sea sick that I puke for three days straight and take in nothing but fluids…All while butchering tuna and sword or baiting lobster pots or shucking scallops. The last few times I got sea sick to the point where I was throwing up bile, yuck…I know. Sorry! I also got tunnel vision and double vision. The other time, I lost all my strength; my arms felt like lead. Even though I was getting sick, maybe one out of three times out, and even though I could push through it and do my job (no paid sick days in fishing -and you can’t go home until everyone else does) I was starting to think that unemployment, even though when you go from self employment to unemployment you can’t collect [unemployment benefits] -may not have been as bad as I thought.
Before Bonine, I tried the prescription patch - Scopolamine (this is a $10.00 prescription, not covered by my insurance), Dramamine, wrist bands and ginger -which, by the way, I highly recommend using with Bonine. Although ginger didn’t prevent seasickness, it settled my stomach and helped me to recover faster. Bonine works every time to prevent sea sickness, but sometimes, my stomach gets kind of an indigestion feeling, even though the Bonine prevents the nausea. When that happens I just chew on a little slice of fresh ginger. It has a real bite. But, I kinda got addicted to it. Try it for yourself, it is a very healthy, medicinal and uniquely tasting root. See some health benefits of ginger: click here
I was desperate for this medicine to work and save my job. For that reason I’m sure there might have been somewhat of a placebo effect behind it. For a great article about that read: Placebo power: Learning to harness it. But with Bonine, the side effects for me are much less than Dramamine and Scopolamine. Besides the "speedy buzz" those medicines made me feel, the worst side effect was that these medicines somehow crank the pee valve shut. It’s not easy taking a leak over the side of a rocking boat. These other motion sickness medicines make it impossible. It’s a miserable feeling. The only side effect I’ve noticed with Bonine is that it will make me a little sleepy, but not until about ten hours after I take it -after it’s done its job.
I don’t think the company claims this benefit, but to me Bonine even helps with the nausea that comes with a good whiff of lobster bait. A fifty gallon barrel of lobster bait goes through phases of smells that range in intensity of putridness. Toward the end, it gets not-so-bad because it smells like straight ammonia. It seems to me that Bonine dulls my sense of smell. Do you know how some really bad smells go right to your throat and squeeze? This is usually followed by the stomach turning, especially if nausea from motion sickness or something else has already set in. And then that is followed by…well I guess I can end this article without mentioning the fruit of sea sickness in all its soupy chunkiness again, and just say -"I’m on my second box and Bonine rocks!"
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