Just to take up some of the points that Philip Veerman made about pelagics.
As someone who has been on a few pelagics I now know the ropes, but it
can't be denied that for those who are first going on pelagics, or those
who don't go very regularly, they can be quite daunting. We have all seen
the first time people who come on board, get sea-sick in the first five
minutes and disappear to the cabin, never to reappear until the boat docks
again. I suspect that little can be done for this people. But what of the
people, usually non-Australian first-timers, who stand around for five or
six hours, often get soaked, continue smiling politely, but, one suspects,
are a bit lost?
Well, I suppose Trevor is right, they should do their homework, or ask
questions. Whenever I am on a trip I try to identify people I think might
need to be fed information, and try to do it, even though I'm not really an
expert. The experts are mostly invovled with the running of the trip, and
are therefore too busy to do much in the way of information-feeding. But I
think that those who are a bit more in the know ought to try a bit harder
to spread information around. Sometimes I find after while that the people
I am informing know considerably more than me, but most of the time what I
say is well-received.
There is one interesting psycholgical effect I have noticed on board
pelagics. Obviously bad sea-sickness creates complete lethargy in people,
but I have noticed in myself that even without noticebale sea-sickness I am
quite lethargic on board. This could be a result of the tablets I take
against sea-sickness (Qwells) or it could be non-nauseous sea-sickness, or
it could be a psychological reaction to the actual danger of moving about
the boat in rough seas. Certainly I have often said to myself on
disembarking 'Why didn't I take more interest in what was going on/move
about more/take more photos', and it could be that other people, especially
peopl;e who have only been once or twice, experience this lethargy on
board, don't recognise it, and when they disembark ask 'Why didn;t people
tell me more, why didn;t I see everything that the list says I ought to
have seen', and so forth.
John Leonard
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
John Leonard (Dr),
PO Box 243,
Woden, ACT 2606,
Australia
http://www.spirit.net.au/~jleonard
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