This Baydestrian Took to The High Seas on a Badass Boat

The harbor of Jost Van Dyke, British Virgin Islands | Photo by Dena Rod

BY DENA ROD

Welcome to The Transgender Sabbatical Blues, an ongoing series exploring Dena Rod’s experience as a transgender, non-binary, Iranian American Bay Area local who took a five-week sabbatical all over the Northern Hemisphere.

We were about to experience #BOATLIFE.

The BlueBelle’s dinghy floating amongst a Caribbean sunset | Photo by Dena Rod

Sure, you may have heard of #VANLIFE but have you heard of #BOATLIFE? There are people living 24/7 on a boat RIGHT NOW. And they’re livestreaming and Youtubing about it online, so you know it’s trending. Yacht salesmen are boasting a record increase in monthly boat sales. I mean I get it, our coasts may all be underwater in the next 30-70 years. Might as well cosplay a pirate 24/7! And, wouldn’t you know it, Becky’s pal Lindsay and her partner Paul had been living on BlueBelle, a Lagoon 40 catamaran in the Caribbean for the last 14 months. They welcomed us with open arms for a week on their floating home. 

Thanks to their blog about their version of #BOATLIFE, we had a few glimpses of what to expect. After all, we weren’t chartering a yacht with a crew intact whose job was to make sure we had everything we needed. Instead, we’d be unregistered stowaways expected to pull our own weight on the boat. There would be poop decks to swab, sails to hoist, and dishes to wash. While this was similar to a dear friend inviting us to be their houseguest, it was multiplied tenfold. We were also being invited spiritually into someone’s car, RV, camping tent, and life raft. 

Once Becky and I boarded the BlueBelle, we became part of a unit geared towards collective survival on an element that can be unfamiliar and unpredictable. But #BOATLIFE is not without its rewards. The first day we arrived, dolphins heralded our presence at sunset. Our hosts told us that it had been seven  months since they had seen any. 

Swiftly we learned about sailing culture down in the Caribbean, the do’s and dont’s of #BOATLIFE. Yes, those of us who live on land are absolutely called landlubbers by those who are sailing the high seas 24/7. You learn how to toss your compost out into the water with fish swimming up to eat your discarded lime wedges. You learn to not drop toilet paper in the sea toilet and how to put your back into pumping your own shit out of said sea toilet. You batten down the hatches before setting sail so your bed doesn’t get wet. You’d rather take a navy shower off the boat ladder than be in the tiny three foot shower below deck. You make do with less. Mac n’ cheese for breakfast? Sure, why not, the ice box is full and the pizza boat is 20 knots south. Yes, there’s a pizza boat. And a floating spa. They’re listed in the Cruising Guide, which yachtsmen consult on where to go next. Cruising takes a very different context out on the water than on land in San Francisco. 

Pizza Pi the U.S. Virgin Island’s premier pizza boat establishment | Photo by Dena Rod

A comradery was built amongst our crew of four. Soon after breakfast every morning, we’d discuss where to sail next. A trajectory from St. Thomas to St. John to Jost Van Dyke to Sandy Cay emerged. We didn’t linger in coves and bays for longer than 24 hours, chasing the sun and fish for even brighter, clearer turquoise waters. 

Life on the ocean follows a rhythm. It somehow gets simpler and less complicated than life on shore. You’re awoken by rains at 4 a.m. and get the opportunity to catch the sunrise and greet fish in the water before the day gets too hot. Swim to get your steps in. Catch some rays, and by that I mean watch the stingrays swim alongside you. In the morning, there would be schools of silvery fish waking up with us. At night, as the sun would set, barracudas and sting rays would linger in the shadow of the BlueBelle. 

That week was one of the best weeks of my life. It was #BOATLIFE. Being on a boat as a fat trans Iranian American felt like an act of resistance amongst the southern Florida yacht crowd sailing their way down the Florida Keys and into the other islands. 

Another thing about sailing culture: No matter what, once you sail into an anchorage you wave to the others who are also docked there. You wave even if they have some questionable flags flying above their masthead. You wave even when there is a two-year post-op genderqueer merboy toweling off after swimming with sea turtles and then subsequently get confused at WHAT is that person and then said merboy laughs, with his waterproof eyeliner intact while twerking his ass dry. It’s me, I’m merboy. 

#BoatLife stowaways, world traveler extraordinaire Becky and author, Dena Rod |Photo by Dena Rod

#BoatLife hosts Paul and Lindsay overlooking the harbor of St Thomas, US Virgin Islands | Photo by Dena Rod

You wave because out on those seas, if you survive, you are enchanted by existence. At night, there are more stars than you can count, light pollution becomes only a memory. The sea becomes your master and the boat your mistress as an unpredictable ocean swell will make you lose your balance causing a door handle to rip your shirt open like Fabio on the cover of a romance novel. 

Swimming from boat to shore, I could feel alternate currents pushing through the sea, a cold ribbon sluicing over my body amongst the warm spools caressing me. There was more sensation in my chest than ever before since my top surgery. The sky was endless and the sun relentless, my skin turning a tan I hadn’t seen since my time in summer swim teams as a youth. The turquoise water never ceased to be clear as glass, the sun reflecting through the surface looking like diamonds and treasure foretold by legends and myth. 

Swimming in open ocean water is vastly different than a swimming pool. You have no pool floor or side to cling onto as BlueBelle could only be docked in waters 30 feet or deeper. If you got lucky enough to swim to the shallow end, more often than not, it would be a rapidly bleaching coral reef that will hurt you as badly as you will hurt it if you step on its ecosystem. I was rapidly reminded that I was a land mammal as I floated on my back and sipped air gratefully from above. The ocean was reminding me that, despite my size, she was a force much bigger than me. I was on her turf, on her terms, as her guest. No matter how badly I wanted to live out my Little Mermaid fantasy.

I felt endlessly grateful to my mother who was fanatical about me learning how to swim. A week before I left for my travels, I learned why. As a child born in Abadan, Iran in the 1950s, her father, my baba bozorg, worked on the British Petroleum refinery compound. This form of imperialism allowed access to swimming pools for the British and Iranian workers. Separate swimming pools of course — this is the 50s. But as the firstborn daughter, my maman, she was told that “girls can’t swim.” So she grew up in sweltering triple-digit heat, looking longingly at other kids playing in the swimming pool. Not her child. No, her child would grow up to swim an island channel and feel seawater flowing across his weightless chest, euphoria growing with every splash. 

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