A pretty dial. It measures wind speed.



As you can see, there wasn't much wind that day.

Nevertheless, I got seasick.

"Sometimes you can psyche yourself into being seasick," Leo said.

"I'm trying to psyche myself out of it," I said. That didn't work. Leo loaned me his bucket.

For about half the trip, though (the second half), I didn't feel bad at all--or mostly not bad at all.

"You know what's great for settling the stomach? Goldfish crackers. No seriously!" Leo insisted. At the moment he told me, I couldn't conceive of eating anything, but later on I did actually have some goldfish crackers. They were all I ate on the boat, and I did find them remarkably comforting. I bought a bag when I got home out of nostalgia.

You know who never gets seasick? (besides Jason--Jason never gets seasick) Seals! (Pretty good segue, yes?)

We saw seals out in the open ocean, eating. They disappeared before I could snap a photo. When we were turning in the fish, there were seals hanging about too. They dived and swam like sunlight and shadows. I liked their shoulders, which looked just like people shoulders. I could totally understand about selkies.

There are apparently a LOT of seals on Cape Cod now, and that, according to my cousins, leads to two problems. Well, three, if you count that seals want to eat some of the same fish that the fishermen want to catch. One problem is that sharks (big sharks--not dogfish) like to eat seals, and they start swimming in close to harbors and beaches to hunt them. And, what mammal is about the same size as a seal and swims around in harbors and near beaches? (Cue the music from Jaws.) Last year a beach in Chatham was closed when a great white shark was sighted about a 100 yards away from a beach party.

Seals also can have worms, and when bottom-feeding fish eat seal feces, they can get those same worms. Both Jim and Bill filleted fish right on deck (for personal consumption), and they showed me the thin, curly worms. (You don't need to worry about this with the fish you buy, though: when fish are cut up for sale, they do it over a glass with a light shining through from underneath to be sure there are no parasites. Also, if you cook the fish, even if there **are** parasites, it's not a problem. More information here, if you're curious.)

In spite of all that, I like seals.