Asea | 6 April 2022
I have always loved the sea, but this fucking boat is bad.
BNR Response
I agreed to take this trip because I thought it was just what I needed: an escape from work that was no longer fulfilling, a chance to brown my belly and breasts in the sun, and perhaps a week-long guilt-free sex romp with the ex I was finally over. It only took six hours for me to realize my miscalculations and begin to panic about how I was going to make it through another seven days stuck on this dive boat with this insufferable asshole.
His real name was Rod, the ex, that is. When I met him those five years ago, he was the breath of fresh air my love life needed. He was tall, tan, and lean, with a whip smart wit and a quick smile. We’d bonded over a light-hearted approach to romance, at first: partner workouts at East Beach, walking our dogs at Hendrys, eating fish tacos on sarapes, and making out at Leadbetter. In those days, I called him Hot Rod. After a few months, things got more intense. His mom got sick, and he leaned on me to help him get through it. As his mom’s health improved and the seasons changed, what started as, “something for now, for fun” slowly became something we talked about in future tense: “when we do this…”, “when such-and-such happens next year, we’ll…”, and sharing knowing eye contact at fellow couples’ milestones.
It was three years in when things started to unravel. When the relationship started going south, it didn’t sour gracefully like grapes on a vine, it tanked like a ship determined to go down in record time. I was, surprisingly to me, thankful that we had never moved in together, as untangling the rest of our intertwined lives was proving harrowing enough. My emotional work was in realizing that I would likely never know just what went wrong and coming to terms with the lack of closure. And for the life of me, I believe that only God knows what possessed Rod. He became hateful and bitter. I started referring to him as A-Rod, a nod to the baseball player whose ego disgusted me. I had been surprised at just how hard it was for me to fully detach myself from our bond, from the hopes I had for our future, for all that I had planned and daydreamed about for years.
So, when two years had passed and he reached out for coffee, I was both reticent and curious. I had recently come out the other side of my post-break-up grief and felt strong enough to meet with him. My curiosity piqued, when we met, I discovered what seemed like a refreshed, therapized version of the Rod I had been smitten with in those early days. Cool Rod. My growing impatience with work at my landscape architecture firm, combined with an increasing wanderlust and an unexpected physical yearning rising inside me led me to accept his offer for an all-expenses paid eight-day jaunt on a dive boat.
We set sail on a glorious SoCal day, the sun settling around the Channel Islands as our 80-foot boat glided by. There we several couples, four dogs, and five crew on the boat with us, and I was excited about a no-strings-attached week away from my troubles.
Things took a turn after Rod’s third welcome cocktail started kicking in. I had only seen drunky Rod a few times in our years together, and it wasn’t a good scene when he came out to play. Shoddy Roddy would reel from lugubrious to lecherous, from brassy to braggadocious in the space of half a Pacifico beer. It was like riding an emotional tilt-a-whirl and I wanted to get off. He became handsy with me, with the stewardess, with the dive coach, and a few of the wives. He became bratty when rebuffed and started speaking in baby talk when asking for another drink. As he pretended to suckle on his pony neck as if it were a baby bottle, I deliberated on my duty here. I started to resent the boat, the trip, my rotten fortune. Luckily, a Samson-like deck hand convinced him to go below deck and put him in a cot. Before we knew it, he was out like a light. Said deck hand, Joey, and I celebrated by pointing out constellations to each other and falling asleep together on the forward deck.
On day two we were briefly graced with the presence of Rod the Sun God, who showcased his impressive athleticism and undeniable charm. After dark, Shoddy Roddy decided on an unsanctioned drunken night dive which sent the entire crew into a tailspin. Once he had been tucked into his hammock, Joey, who I learned was the bosun and not a deck hand, and I hung our legs over the edge of the craft and shared stories from the day and days long past.
Days three through seven were like rinse and repeat: Rod would start the day fresh and bright, and, as the sun sank down, he would devolve into a lesser version of himself. His antics were starting to take a toll on the crew as well as the other guests. I felt asea in the other sense of the word, in that some of the guests clearly felt I bore responsibility for corralling him while others recognized our very loose affiliation. Despite the murkiness of the situation, I was able to create both credibility and friendships with everyone else on the vessel. I was an accomplished diver, able to help less experienced passengers, and I garnered praise from the crew.
On our last night, over a casual dinner of tofu burgers and tossed salad, we all gathered on the deck to marvel at the past several days of discovery, an existence free of social media, and the wonders of the Pacific. We swapped stories about our moments of awe from the trip, went through several bottles of Syrah, and snuggled with each other and with our dogs.
Joey and I had gotten cozy over the week, and I was enjoying getting back to myself and back to nature – a stark contrast from my cubicle lens of curating precision gardens for wealthy clients. Perhaps sensing this shift, Shoddy Roddy would not be outdone and chose to proclaim to the group that I was the only woman he had ever loved and the only woman who had broken his heart. He trotted out old, tatty stories about our dissolution that painted me in a one-sidedly hideous light. While I was dismayed when he passed out on the deck rather than in his bunk below, I was glad his harangue was over and thankful that he was so far gone that he wouldn’t be any more bother.
Joey and I huddled under a blanket and fell asleep under the stars, the shadow of Anacapa Island cooling our skin, which remained warm from retaining the day’s sun.
As we docked at the harbor the next morning and prepared to go ashore, Rod proclaimed the trip a success and offered each individual his estimations of their talents and their diving skill level. It was cringey.
Later that week, I made a proclamation of my own: I quit my job and announced I’d be taking on a seasonal role as the cook on the dive boat, Beshert. When I embarked on the trip, I had been taken by the name of our vessel, as it loosely translates to, “fate” or, “destiny” in Hebrew. I never saw Rod after we parted ways at the end of the dock, but I’m thankful his trainwreck led me to the ocean again. And, while I didn’t know it at the time, my career change was not the only thing that had been divinely conceived during that seven-day dive in the deep.