A Bag of Chips a Day Keeps the Seasickness at Bay

Cooper island

May 26, 2025 

It’s morning two and we seem to have already established our 6 am group wake up time which is quite lovely. The world is still mostly asleep (especially on island time) and it is marginally less hot and humid, although I did clock 82 degrees around 8 am. Strangely enough, the low every day is 79 and the high is 82, somehow even the sun going down doesn’t lower the temperature. It was our first night on the boat and we all slept pretty well with minimal rocking because we were at a dock and ac keeping us cool. Chris would call this glamping. We had to wait until 7 to get breakfast but the second that clock hit 7, we were at the door of the French bakery ready to get some ham and cheese croissants and coffees. Post breakfast, we hightailed it over to the grocery store where typical shanannigan shenanigans ensued. 

We were all in uniform (our matching blue Hawaiian shirts) and immediately got comments from someone who worked at the store, saying he loved the matching shirts. About halfway into our shop, he found us inside the store and asked us where we got the shirts because he wants one. Lan, Kerry, and I said we weren’t sure because our uncle got them so he set off to find the fourth matching shirt and asked Chris (Walmart, in case anyone else wants to match :)). Kerry was surprised he knew who our uncle was until she remembered we were in fact all matching and that was the point of the worker asking questions. 

I found the grocery store to be quite interesting with its mix of products. They had some items that were Waitrose brand which is a UK store, others that are Kirkland, and also items that were in Spanish and others even in French. It really seems as though they import whatever is cheapest for each item which I respect. After about an hour of shopping and getting everything on our list and of course even more not on the list, we took bets on how much the total would be before checking out. My $643 guess was the closest to the actual $660 total. At first we thought that was quite hefty but then when thinking about it for four for a week, we decided it wasn’t too bad. Spoiler alert, there’s no way it lasts the whole week. 

Once we got back to the boat, Chris 2 came by to give us our briefing. While Chris 1 was paying attention and asking questions, the rest of us went off to find ice, smoothies, and more blankets. At some point, we asked Chris 2 about beanbag chairs and he said that while we weren’t allowed to have them on our boat, he saw some on the dock that we should take and put down below until we leave the marina. That’s when I decided I really like Chris 2 - I just wish we had a matching shirt to offer him. He is also how we learned where the grill was on the boat, which is one of the most important features in my opinion. Around this time, Kerry realized she was missing her phone and the last I had seen it was when she tossed it onto the cushion at the back of the boat when unloading groceries so of course our concern was that it may have gone overboard. We were tossing the boat apart trying to find it for many, many minutes when we learned it was in Chris’s pocket, along with his own phone. 

We finally had everything we needed and thought we knew everything we needed to know so we set off around 10:30. At this point the sun was high, humidity even higher. We motored out to open seas then attempted to begin our sailing. It didn’t take long for Chris to realize this boat is different from others he’s sailed and we did not 100% know what we were doing. Luckily we have 4 engineers on this trip and we were eventually able to figure it out and start sailing. The winds were really strong and it didn’t take long for the sailboat to be at what felt like a 90 degree angle and some light (read: heavy for Kerry) seasickness to set in. It didn’t help that it this point we had gone agessss without food and were all quite hungry. Kerry attempted to go down below to grab stuff to make sandwiches but immediately learned how much worse the seasickness is down there and came back up empty handed. Poor Chris has to deal with us bitching about hunger and tummies hurting (not much has changed huh mom ;)).  

A few hours later when we were pulling into Cooper Island where we would spend the night, I happened to look into the hull and see stuff everywhere, including the silverware drawer about to fall out of its railings. I rushed downstairs to try to save it but just as I reached it, it all came crashing down and my seasickness started. It was definitely not worth not saving the silverware to start feeling a little nauseous. This is also how we learned the drawers all have a lock that we failed to enable on any of them. Around this point is when the first bag of chips of the day was consumed: kettle cooked sea salt and vinegar. Kerry claims it had healing powers for the seasickness; it was definitely between that or the Dramamine! 

As we were approaching the mooring balls, Lan and I took on the challenge of snagging the ball with a hook (Lan) and tying it to the boat (me). I will say we nailed it first try. We looked like some real seamen out there. After cleaning up the mess the drawers made for a bit and eating a lunch of sandwiches, Chris then taught us how to use the dinghy and us three women set off to a snorkeling spot. The snorkeling is absolutely beautiful. The crystal clear water makes it easy to spot the colorful fish that are abundant in the reefs. There were so many fish that were shiny, for lack of better term, and were glittering brilliantly in the water. We also saw sea urchins - which I was unreasonably scared of considering how far away they were (in my defense. Some of the spines were as long as my forearm) - and fire coral, which was somehow less scary to me. 

After swimming around for an hour or so, some of which was in the rain, we headed back to the boat, ate our second bag of chips (Ruffle’s sour cream and onion), grabbed Chris, and swam ashore. I do love how transportation is via swimming, it’s so relaxing and I am using every excuse to get in the water at this point. There wasn’t much to do on shore except go to the beach bar during happy hour so we brought the deck of cards along with us, finally having enough players to play whist. Immediately upon dealing, we realized we were 3 cards short… apparently our gathering skills at the beach the day prior were not as good as we had thought. We decided to turn the jokers into an ace of spades and a queen of clubs and eliminate 5s altogether - after all, who truly cares about the 5s in this game. Kerry and I ended up kicking Lan and Chris’ butts, but Lan did have one round where she bet 7 (the max in our 12 book version) and somehow pulled it off. After a while of this, we headed back to the boat with a pit stop at a store to buy a new deck of cards. 

Back at the boat, we spent some time relaxing before gearing up to cook dinner and I found my spot on a bean bag chair on deck at the bow and read. It was so relaxing, lying in the rocking of the boat under the sinking sun. I did end up finishing my book (Last Night at the Telegraph Club) and was heartbroken the story had come to an end, especially so early on in the trip. I had only started the book on the flight over…. At some point during my reading, endeavors to cook dinner began. With an easy plan of burgers, dogs, baked beans, and painkillers, we really didn’t think it would take this long. By this point, the sun had set and it was around 6:30 and we were proud of finally getting dinner at a normal hour. However, we would not be eating anytime soon. That being said, the painkillers did come together quickly and were delicious. 

We could not figure out how to turn on either the grill or the stove top. We were able to figure out how to turn the propane on, but still no dice. It got to the point where we ended up calling the Moorings and seeing if they could talk us through it. While they tried their best, we were still quite confused until suddenly everything seemed to work all at once!! This was a huge moment, but only for a bit until we realized the grill would not stay lit. Once we were on minute 10 of the burgers not seeming to cook, we investigated and found that it appears as though there is not enough airflow in the grill so it was just going out a minute or so after we would light it. Eventually I ended up taking the food below deck to cook on the stove, which we had gotten to work consistently. 

While I was at the stove cooking, there were a few times the boat rocked enough that I was stumbling around a bit and it made me think of Pirates of the Caribbean - perhaps Captain Jack Sparrow was not drunk all the time but rather struggling with sea legs and land legs. I know I sure am with the former! I do think if I were to run along the side of the boat, especially while it was in motion, I would look exactly like Sparrow when he runs. 

Somehow dinner turned out ok, and we were all famished at this point and destroyed the food, including our third bag of chips (Lays barbecue). We discussed how we should have learned sea shanties before the trip and how excited we are that it is only Monday and we still have the week ahead of us. We ended the night with some more Whist.

- Rhianna

Whist: 

Kerry and rhi: 7

Chris and lan: 3

Family sized bags of chips consumed: 3

Happy birthday Kelly! 🫶🏻