Seal Watch.

One year we talked ourselves--or should I say, Sandi talked me--into going on a seal watch. I needed persuasion because I was pretty sure the mildest of rough sea would set off the nauseated/barf/misery cycle; I've always had kind of a weak stomach. But we were assured that it was the most benign of peaceful and placid jaunts out towards the tip of Monomoy Island, where we would see seals up on the sand. Well, we saw seals, but it was anything but benign.

We hadn't even chugged out of the marina before we were in "uh oh" mode. It was choppy, it was windy, it was bouncy, and the boat was rockin'. Note the trepidation on the faces:

 We roared out into Nantucket Sound at a high rate of wave-slamming speed and came around the southern side of the Island to...seals! Unfortunately, we couldn't truly enjoy them as the standard operating procedure for observation was to idle your 20-foot boat parallel to the shore in pitching 5-foot waves, in wind gusts that threatened to throw you overboard, while noxious diesel fumes from the incessantly throbbing engine washed slowly and steadily over you. The bathroom, if you want to generously call it a bathroom, was maybe two feet by two feet and not designed for the kind of kneeling over and worshiping we were definitely beginning to ponder. After fifteen minutes of this torture, about the time we were beginning a serious discussion regarding which side of the boat it would be most safe and least embarrassing from which to projectile vomit, we started to move. Here I am, as they say, just hangin' on:

I photoshopped this picture, making Sandi green, and sent it to my Mom in a letter, but in the interest of domestic tranquility I'm posting the original. She really was kind of green, trust me, and not at all happy:

Seals, with more and much closer photos another day:

And finally, back in the car, still in the marina parking lot, waiting for our stomachs to stop doing back flips:

 To our great surprise, we didn't get sick, at least in the "here come my Cheerios" sense of sick, and we vowed to be braver the next time we're faced with a trip on a rolling sea.