I'm On A Boat by The Lonely Island

One of the things I love about my wife Diana is how she has introduced me to new experiences. Often she will suggest that we do activities that I wouldn’t necessarily think of and these experience make up some of my favorite memories. So, when Diana suggested that we go on whale watching, I didn’t think twice about it.

Too bad boat trip ended up being a puke-fest.

One of our best friends got married last weekend in Carmel, California. It’s a small city South of Monterey Bay right next to the legendary Golf Course, Pebble Beach. The wedding was on Friday, so we decided to stay for the whole weekend and spend some quality time by the ocean.

Before we left, Diana and I were in contact with our friend Bonnie, who was also coming to Morgan’s wedding. Bonnie thought up the idea of going whale watching and her and Diana found this company, “Monterey Whale Watching.” The website looked great and there were some good testimonials so we went ahead and got tickets.

On Saturday morning we checked in with Monterey Whale Watching on “Old Fisherman's Wharf” and Bonnie, with her friend Aaron met up with Diana and me. Before we got on the boat, the boat’s naturalist did a little speech to all of the passengers.

The naturalist went over some safety rules on the boat, and explained what to look for to spot a whale. Then she proceeded explain what to do if we got seasick. She explained how if you lost the “good fight” and had to throw up to do it off of the back of the boat, not the sides (because the puke would travel down the side of the boat). She went over the best place to be on the boat to go if you felt seasick and told us if we were feeling seasick, to take deep breaths and keep our eyes on the horizon. In retrospect, it wasn’t a good sign that the naturalist spent more time talking about seasickness then watching whales.

We all piled on to this boat, The Pacific Explorer a 75-foot long and 23-foot wide “wildlife observation vessel.” It had a small cabin in the center bar and space around the outside to walk around.


Diana and I started our boat ride sitting on the side of the boat and as I gazed at the 10 to 20 foot waves, I started to feel queasy. After about ten minutes, we found Bonnie and Aaron who were at the back of the boat leaning on the back railing. As Diana started talking to them, it happened, I made an a-line to the back railing and there went my breakfast.

About five minutes after my first “pukage” Aaron lost it as well, and I saw his Chai-Tea Latte and Cranberry Scone fly out into ocean. The sight of this caused a visceral reaction in my body and I lost whatever was left in my stomach. By this time, both Bonnie and Diana trying to take care of us handing us gobs of paper towels, provided by crew.

In my own haze of seasickness, I began to notice that Aaron and I were not the only people leaning over the back of the boat throwing up. This made me feel a little less embarrassed and not so emasculated. Some people didn’t quite make it over the back so there were puddles of puke around the back area which the shipmates kept cleaning up. Meanwhile people took their turns running to the back of their ship to get better acquainted with the contents of their stomachs.

A little bit more than half of the boat got sick and the various friends and family members approached the crew members about the people who were getting seasick. They did provide paper towels but they didn’t do much else. Diana and Bonnie asked them repeatedly as did many other to turn back early, but they did not. We stayed out for the 2 1/2 hours.

Now I understand that if you have one person sick on a boat ride then it’s not fair to the other paying customers to end the boat ride early. However, if half of your passengers are sick and the other half are not having a good time because there were no whales to be seen (though Bonnie did say she was an otter laughing at the people who were sick) you probably should cut the boat ride short.

As I was leaning against the back rail trying to focus my gaze on the horizon (which didn’t help AT ALL) I was desperately trying to play music in my head to help the time go faster. The only thing I could come up with was marching band music, which didn’t help at all. Later I found out that Aaron had the same idea as I did and had “I’m On A Boat” going on in his head.

We certainly were on a boat and though it wasn’t nearly as glamorous as Andy Samberg described with his “flippy-floppies,” we definitely felt the righteous anger that Samberg inexplicably directs at the good things on the boat. Our anger, however, was focused on this “wildlife observation vessel” that we could not wait to get off of.

Even though the boat ride was one of most miserable experiences of my life, I don’t blame Diana or Bonnie. It’s not their fault. The thing is, I don’t even blame the boat company for the bad weather and the fact that we didn’t see any whales. However, the fact that we didn’t turn around after so many people got seasick . . . yeah, that’s not cool.

I just thank God that I don't have to clean up puke as part of my job.