The Short Story (Video Version)
If a picture's worth a thousand words, maybe a video's worth a bit more. This is a quick 5-minute video to show you exactly why Ellen's story was so personally compelling to me.
The Full Story (Text Version)
I first heard of Ellen Creesy in 2013, in the middle of my inaugural sailing lesson, when my instructor learned I was a writer and said, “Have I got a story for you.”
I was amazed by her feat, then inspired, then intrigued. But I was also trying to control a bucking J24 in twenty-two knots and the heavy chop of San Francisco Bay while being soaked by freezing spray. I filed Ellen away in my mind as a fascinating historical tidbit.
At the time, I was working on a different novel and far more focused on my own relationship with the sea. Was my dream of sailing into the sunset just fantasy, I wondered? Did I even like sailing?
That first wild and wet day gave me the answer: an emphatic YES!
Over the next several years, I took every class I could, became a skipper, and began chartering boats. Then I joined race teams and learned how to eke every half-knot out of a boat—under pressure, when things were breaking, in the most challenging conditions. Eventually, I was invited to become an instructor myself and discovered that teaching in those same J24s taught me more than I’d ever learned by doing.
Along the way, I fell in love with a fellow sailor who shared my dream. In 2018, we moved aboard a Pacific Seacraft 37 named Pristine, set off from San Francisco, and spent the next two years sailing around Baja and into the Sea of Cortez.
I got seasick. I got cold. My sleep was interrupted, my hair was constantly salty, and grocery shopping meant a new market in a new town in a new language every week. There were storms and rocks, sharks and orcas. I rationed water, electricity, and notebook space.
And yet, they were the most glorious years of my life.
Almost daily, nature gave me at least one moment of awe. My coffee cup and pillow stayed in the same place—but every week, my backyard changed completely. Life didn’t just include adventure—it was adventure. I never wanted the journey to end.
In early 2020, after 5,000 nautical miles, we prepared to cross our first ocean. But three days before departure, Covid closed the Pacific.
What followed was a slow unraveling: we sailed back to California, moved ashore, and ultimately sold the boat. I never stopped dreaming of going back—but for a long while, the only way I could get to sea was through story.
And that’s when Ellen resurfaced.
If I couldn’t be at sea myself—at least not yet—I could write about it. As I researched her life, I learned she too had lost her dream for a time, when she lost her father. On some level, we were sea sisters. That was enough to dive in headfirst.
Of course, I wondered how she built the skills, courage, and inner strength to succeed. Not just as a person—but as a woman.
One of the most popular preachers of Ellen’s day was Edwin Hubbell Chapin, who packed Trinity Church in New York with two thousand congregants each Sunday and inspired the character of Pastor Bartlett. In his Duties of Young Women (1849), he wrote:
“It is morally wrong to neglect or violate the laws of our being. The culture of our God-given powers is a religious duty. The display of learning in a woman is disliked as much as pedantry in a man, the strong-minded woman characterized by cold, masculine, intellectuality. The purpose of a woman’s intellect is for charming conversation, enriched by judgment, and refined by a discriminating and educated mind.”
This was the world Ellen lived in. And yet she didn’t just sail—she became the best navigator of her century.
I set out to write about that accomplishment. But I’d been to sea. I’d navigated both a boat—and a marriage—under duress. And I found myself asking a deeper question:
Not just how did she do it, but how did she do it with him?
Writing The Navigator became far more than historical fiction. It became a reckoning. Like many women, I’ve wrestled with the tension between freedom and belonging, strength and softness, ambition and acceptance. Chapin’s words may sound outdated—but poke around on Reddit, where anonymity reveals honesty, and you’ll still hear:
“Gender roles have worked since the dawn of time. I have 0 idea why they want to change it now.”
Or ask what men most value in women and you’ll find: beauty, loyalty, a family mindset.
We may balk at Chapin’s overt rules—but many of his sentiments are still deeply internalized within us.
As a former corporate executive, I’ve seen the effects firsthand: The men who support strong women—until you outrank them. The staff who label you “difficult” when you speak directly. The subtle pressure to dim your light so others feel more comfortable.
And it’s not just women who are trapped.
Ask what women most value in men, and you’ll often hear: money, status, and height. The system boxes everyone in.
Ellen’s story gave me a language for that struggle—and a vision for transcending it.
It was incredible enough that she became a professional navigator. That she crushed it. But she also had to navigate the uncharted waters of being both wife and crew—balancing facts and feelings, strategy and survival, in an environment where mistakes could mean death.
Hers was a sea adventure for the ages. But it was also a marriage story.
This novella is fiction, inspired by real people and events. The heart of it is true, even where the details are imagined.
If you’ve ever asked yourself whether it’s possible to live a life of daring and devotion, of love and liberty—Ellen’s journey has an answer. She doesn’t offer it neatly wrapped. But it’s here, between the lines.
And if this story stirred something in you, keep sailing with us. The voyage of The Navigator Series is just beginning.
Meanwhile, just as Ellen went all-in, so did I. While writing this story, my husband and I sold our house and bought a new boat—our future home, and vessel for adventure. We move aboard this November.
The compass is set. The sails are ready. A new chapter awaits us all.
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