I too am very prone to Sea Sickness. I agree with what everyone is saying.  I 
definitely have to watch the horizon, but I find an open area closest to the  
middle of the boat, is the most stable. 
 
I also have electronic wrist bands that electronically pulse the  acupuncture 
point on the wrist that helps avoid Sea Sickness. You can increase  the pulse 
depending on how bad the conditions are and how you feel. These work  very 
well. I got mine from Sharper Image. I heard about them from my Uncle who  was 
taking a trip with his girlfriend on the QEII. The friend always gets  
sick...they both had them. The ship had to steer around a hurricane on the trip.  He 
said that everyone on the whole ship was sick, scapolemine (sp) patches were  
not working, nothing was working except the bands my uncle  had. They took off 
their bands for a short time, immediately started  to feel sick, put them back 
on and felt better again. The ship's Dr. took down  all the information about 
them. I have used mine since and have had really good  luck. Liz Alton, 
Georgia, VT
 
In a message dated 11/8/2006 10:39:04 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

I'm  prone to seasickness, so I've read as much as I can on the subject. 
Turns out NASA has studied it extensively because space sickness is 
the  same thing, and they've found out one really interesting thing.  I  
read that what happens is that when your inner ear is getting really  
stressed by all the heaving around, your stomach basically goes into  
fibrillation, falling out of its normal steady, regular rhythm and  
getting wildly irregular.  According to NASA, it's far less likely to  do 
that if it's got something to work on, ie food. Best is something  simple 
to digest-- low fat, low protein, low acid.

I've found that  if I make sure to have something in my stomach when I 
get on the boat  before it gets moving and keep nibbling throughout the 
voyage, I do much,  much, much better.  I like saltines, so I bring a 
good-sized bag of  them and just munch away.  That's really made a huge 
difference for  me.

Supposedly, what causes the problem is the contradiction between  what 
your inner ear is sensing about the motion of your body and what your  
eyes are seeing, so you want to minimize that contrast.  So stay on  
deck.  I think the bow is far better than the stern, too, largely  
because of the fumes but also because when you see where you're going,  
it's somehow easier for your brain to deal with the bouncing up and  
down.  And the cold fresh air battering my face also somehow  contributes 
to keeping me on an even keel, so to speak...

If you do  start to feel a little queasy, the very worst thing you can do 
is what we  instinctively want to do, which is lie down or sit down and 
bury your head  in your arms, or go below where you can't see the 
horizon.  If you do  that, you're guaranteed to get actively sick.

I also take Dramamine (if  that makes you too sleepy, there's another 
similar over-the-counter one  that I think is called Bonine, which is 
less of a problem for some  people), and I use those little wristbands 
you can get in the drugstore  with little plastic nobs that push gently 
on a pressure point in your  wrist that's supposed to help.  I have NOT 
experimented to find out  if this really does help or not. :-)

The problem with pelagic birding  is, though, when you look through binos 
at a bird on the water or in the  air, you're creating a really big 
contrast between your body heaving up  and down and your eyes seeing a 
relatively steady image.  So far,  I've not found any amount of Saltines 
or Dramamine or anything else that  will let me use my binoculars on a 
heaving boat for more than quick  glimpses without starting to get into
trouble.  So the world of  fulmars and shearwaters and the like is pretty 
much closed to me, unless  somebody offers a pelagic on something the 
size of the Queen  Elizabeth...

Jane