Maybe there’s a cure!
After reading dozens of e-mails on seasickness cures, it seems the toughest mariners aren't the yo-ho-ho types who've sailed around Cape Horn in a force 10 gale. No, the toughest of the tough are the weekend boaters who routinely cast off the lines knowing that at any moment they're liable to become deathly ill. That's tough! Why do they persist? Renee DeMar from San Francisco was typical; despite being the most seasickness-prone person she knows, Renee has been sailing for the past 30 years simply because she likes being on the water. Jon Triplett from Texas says seasickness "has ruined more trips for me than I can recall, yet I love to go offshore."
Whether they got deathly ill or slightly ill, one thing almost every reader who responded made clear: There is no single cure for seasickness that works miraculously for everybody. For every person who insisted, for example, that wristbands were the answer, another would preface his or her comments by saying they tried wristbands (or ginger, Bonine, Scopolamine, etc.) and they didn't work. Others noted that some of the various medications have side effects that are worse than being seasick.
By a wide margin, most readers' comments were directed at four cures: wristbands, ginger, Meclizine (Bonine, Dramamine) and Scopolamine. We've included comments supporting these cures as well as the negative comments, helpful advice and warnings about possible side effects. We've also included a few of the other cures, some of which were offbeat (understatement).