It was 3:30 in the morning and I had just been hit in the arm by a flying fish. Despite this, my all consuming nausea and dizziness was really the focus of my sleepless, disoriented thoughts, but the sting in my right shoulder and a winged fish floundering around on the deck also disturbed me.

The ships rigging creaked and shuddered while we sailed through another long hot Caribbean night. I was on night watch from midnight until 4am and I had been at the helm when I became ill, a distinct pattern. It was my 30^th consecutive day of seasickness and my favorite kind of fish, the flying fish, which I placed on a near godlike level, had just been mortally injured on my arm. I couldn’t help but laugh. I laughed for a while. I was living on a 125ft sailboat with 29 other people most of…