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Comment by dsacco | Hacker News Reader

> Have you ever tried that in the open ocean? It's quite different from a pool, or a river.

-Spent over 120 days in the open ocean aboard a 25ft boat.

I have. I find it distinctively easier than pools, lakes and rivers. The commenter is right, it doesn’t take much energy, comparatively speaking.

- Just a guy who has floated on water.

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I find it near impossible, mostly due to waves that push water into your eyes and mouth!

You can also float in seawater in the fetal position. Your head will be below water but it is easy to come up for air periodically.

> You can also float in seawater in the fetal position. Your head will be below water but it is easy to come up for air periodically.

Easy to periodically come up, like, every 30 seconds? 3240 times in a row?

Well if you stay calm its more like once a minute or two. When I learned the technique they forced us to stay in the water like this for half an hour, it does kind of suck after a while.

How much heat would you lose by submerging your head and neck, versus how much would you gain by keeping the fetal position? I'm not sure if that's a positive tradeoff.

Keep in mind fetal position requires almost no effort to maintain.

Most big waves are only close to the beach when water breaks over the sand

After watching the talisker atlantic challenge for the last month I think you're wrong. Or is the pacific much quieter than the atlantic?

No.

Can't reply to child asking about the pacific so here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHrCI9eSJGQ

That whole 30 days is calm.

Big waves travel over long distances in the open sea. But it's not the big waves that would disturb when you are floating around, they would just make you float up and down a bit. More disturbing are the small waves that are caused by nearby winds. At the ocean you very often have some wind nearby (depends on the region, season etc).

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