Université Sorbonne Nouvelle—Paris 3

UFR LLCSE – Langue, littératures, cultures et sociétés étrangères

Département du Monde Anglophone

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

Illustration originale, Krewiss

Discovering Sea Sensibilities: An Ecofeminist and Blue
Humanities Reading of Liz Clark's *Swell* and Easkey
Britton's *Saltwater in the Blood*

MÉMOIRE

KREWISS Estelle

Sous la direction de PIRE Béatrice

MASTER 2 Monde Anglophone – Langue, littératures et sociétés

Spécialité : Études anglophones

Mai 2023
To Annie, Joan, and William
Acknowledgments

I would like to express my thanks to the people who have supported me on this journey and made the writing of this master's thesis possible.

I am deeply indebted my research director, Madame Béatrice Pire, whose guidance and advice was invaluable for the writing of my master's thesis. By further introducing me to the blue humanities, she allowed me to see the sea and water under a new light, which reinforced my passion for all things watery.

I would like to express my gratitude to both Liz Clark and Easkey Britton. Their words inspired me and allowed me to, in turn, dive into and rediscover my own connection to the sea in a myriad of ways.

I wish to thank my Mum and Dad. Words are not enough for all that they have done for me. They have made all of this possible. So I will simply say thank you, but more importantly, I love them both very much, even though I do not say it very often.

A big thank you to Uncle Serge who understands me more than I do myself. Through our Friday lunches, he made me feel at home in Paris, and his keen advice and positive energy made things much more manageable.

A heartfelt appreciation goes to Merryl. She has always cheered me on when I doubted myself and been there to listen to me when things became too much.

I am grateful to my ENGL-393 Ecocriticism teacher Nathan Tebokkel, who gave me thoughtful and constructive comments and whose guidance helped me get an internship at the Rachel Carson Center, and to Henri for his kind assistance.

And finally, thank you to A who gifted me with another perspective on life, and gave me hope.
Introduction

Eventually man, too, found his way back to the sea. Standing on its shores, he must have looked out upon it with wonder and curiosity, compounded with an unconscious recognition of his lineage. He could not physically re-enter the ocean as the seals and whales had done. But over centuries, with all the skill and ingenuity and reasoning powers of his mind, he has sought to explore and investigate even its most remote parts, so that he might re-enter it mentally and imaginatively.

Rachel Carson, *The Sea Around Us*

At the water's edge, a wave of freedom ignites butterflies of joy in the belly. Toes tickle alive. Breath gets deeper. Our skin feels unconditionally one with the ocean. We sink into a rhythm. We recharge our mighty bodies and souls. This is the place. The waves wash near as our arms begin to move mindlessly and thoughtfully propelling us forward. As we glide along the surface of the sea, we feel the deeper part of ourselves come alive inside. We speak ocean. We move with emotion, following the shadows of blue as the waves approach. And then that moment arrives; when this wave chooses us for the dance, our inner wild thrives.

Leah Dawson, *Inner Wild*

The land and sea have often been seen as distinct elements, with one always encroaching upon the other, thereby establishing a border between land life and sea life. Nevertheless, the shore is not a border but an ecotone, that is, a place of encounter and transition between two ecosystems, the land and the sea, that engenders the subsequent creation of life, including one that is true to the shore—interconnected, adaptable, resourceful, and creative.<fnref n="1" /> When, in 1955, Rachel Carson published *The Edge of the Sea*, instead of seeing the shore as a border where opposing forces clash, she established it as the place from which life first arose (8): a place that stages the meeting of two elements and from which creativity may arise. The lives of those who then choose to go to the shore are rhythmed by the ebb and flow of the tide, which not only brings them closer to their environment but also brings land and sea together. When surfers go

<footnote n="1">¹ Carson, Rachel L. *The Edge of the Sea*; Introduced by Margaret Atwood. Canongate, Edinburgh, 2021, 1.</footnote>
to the shore, they interact intimately with that ecosystem, learning to move and live by the swells that then initiate them in wateriness and connection to place, others, and themselves. Liz Clark and Easkey Britton, surfers and respective authors of *Swell: A Sailing Surfer's Voyage of Awakening* and *Saltwater in the Blood: Surfing, Natural Cycles and the Sea's Power to Heal*, write hand-in-hand with the sea, letting the ecotone's process of co-creation take root within their narratives. It allows them to briefly enter its watery world, interact with sea life, and establish connections.

From an early age, the sea has been a second home for Liz Clark. On an eight-thousand-kilometer family sailing journey from San Diego to Mexico when she was ten, Clark was entrusted by her father to do night watches.<fnref n="2" /> Thrown into the deep end, she forged a new bond with the sea, which, from thereon, became an integral part of her life, and her dream of an extended voyage at sea was born. At the age of fifteen, a girlfriend introduced her to the sport of surfing,<fnref n="3" /> which allowed her to experience the sea in a new way and further bolstered her love for it. Consequently, whether sailing or surfing, Clark became environmentally conscious, and after enrolling in Environmental Sciences at the University of California Santa Barbara, she shared her life between land and sea (336). After graduation, she started to work to attain her voyaging dream—during her years of study, she had met Doctor Arent Schuyler, who then became her mentor, pushing her to follow her dreams and aiding her in buying and restoring her sailboat *Swell*, after which she left in 2006 to sail the Pacific solo. Clark is now the ambassador of the NGO Changing Tides Foundation and of Patagonia. She was further recognized for her spirit of adventure in chasing her sailing dream when, in 2015, she was nominated for the National Geographic Adventurer of the Year award (336). After twelve years at sea, Clark put pen to paper and published, in 2018, the book of her life aboard *Swell*. Entitled *Swell: A Sailing Surfer's Voyage of Awakening*, her memoir relates her experiences of life at sea and how it allowed her to form lasting connections with friends, nonhumans, the sea, and even herself. Her narrative starts with her blending her first moments aboard *Swell* with the path that led her to become a captain: her first navigation, her meeting Doctor Schuyler and *Swell*'s restoration. Divided into four parts, the following three parts of her narrative are centered on her adventures at sea, her environmental actions, and her search for self. Within her book, Clark weaves in pictures from her nomadic lifestyle alongside digital art by the artist

<footnote n="2">² Clark, Liz. “Women on the Water: Liz Clark.” Interview by Amber Stronk. *Windcheck*, May 2021, www.windcheckmagazine.com/article/women-on-the-water-liz-clark/. Accessed 24 Nov. 2021.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ Clark, Liz. *Swell: A Sailing Surfer's Voyage of Awakening*. Edited by Sharon AvRutick, 1st ed., Patagonia, Ventura, 2018, 27.</footnote>
Daniella Manini. Surfer and writer Lauren Hill describes in the *Waterpeople Podcast* how Clark's book is “a manifesto, in some ways, of what a modern adventurous woman looks like.”<fnref n="4" /> Clark's journey is a journey to self where, by following her dreams, she also searches for her own truth. As the chapters unfold, Clark endeavors to listen to her environment, and from thereon in, her surfing and sailing become symbiotic: she moves in parallel to her marine environment, with whom she becomes a novice in the art of sailing and surfing, and that teaches her new ways of moving and being. Together, Clark and the sea are co-creative, as her book promotes a new way of interacting with local marine environments that is based on creativity, attentiveness, empathy, respect, and femininity, which ultimately demonstrates how a person can reconnect to their local environment through care. In a similar way, Britton's own life has always been influenced by the sea, and she explores the ways in which one can form lasting bonds with the sea.

Easkey Britton's life has always been influenced by the ebb and flow of the tides. It was on a full moon that Britton was brought into the world, her own mother going to the sea to find courage for them both.<fnref n="5" /> Guided by the sea her whole life, Britton started surfing at an early age; her grandmother brought the first surfboards to Ireland, and her own father pioneered the sport in the country (8–9). When she was twelve, she joined Ireland's national surf team, which in turn allowed her to travel the world, discover new marine environments, and open herself to others and their cultures.<fnref n="6" /> Despite her talent for the sport, she gave up competitive surfing due to the fact that it still, to this day, values performance over fun. Instead, Britton turned to big wave surfing, where, on her home coast of north-western Ireland, she discovered a whole other side to surfing with waves such as Mullaghmore and Aileen's. With this new way of surfing, she found a different rhythm to her life and inner cycle that was more in tune with the shore. During her years of study, Britton took a trip to Baluchistan, Iran, to work with a community of women on the positive effects of immersion and water. There, she introduced Muslim women to water, the sea, and then surfing,<fnref n="7" /> and observed how the sport and the sea in particular allowed these women to rediscover themselves through water and feel more trusting in their bodies and

<footnote n="4">⁴ Clark, Liz. “Liz Clark: Reinventing Rites of Passage.” Interview by Lauren L. Hill and Dave Rastovich. *Water People Podcast*, Patagonia, Sunbutter Skincare, Sanuk, Garry McNeill Concepts, 9 Dec. 2019, waterpeoplepodcast.com/episodes/. Accessed 24 Nov. 2021, 39:05.</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ Britton, Easkey. *Saltwater in the Blood: Surfing, Natural Cycles and the Sea's Power to Heal*. Edited Belle Mundy, 1st ed., Watkins Publishing, London, 2021, 29.</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶ Britton, Easkey. “Dr. Easkey Britton: The Playful Edge.” Interview by Lauren L. Hill and Dave Rastovich. *Water People Podcast*, Patagonia, Sunbutter Skincare, Sanuk, Garry McNeill Concepts, 18 Aug. 2020, waterpeoplepodcast.com/episodes/. Accessed 27 Nov. 2021, 31:50.</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷ Hill, Lauren L. *She Surf: The Rise of Female Surfing*. Edited by Robert Klanten and Andrea Servert, Die Gestalten Verlag, Berlin 2020, 150.</footnote>
abilities. Thereafter, Britton collaborated with the Cornish brand Finisterre to design the seasuit
that “was born out of recognizing in this particular instance a barrier for women who wanted to
surf in that part of the world—especially in Iran—where you have to be covered in public spaces
to do any kind of sport.”<fnref n="8" /> With a PhD in marine social sciences, Britton centers her research on
the positive impact of the sea on people’s wellbeing and the innate bond that we all share with
the latter. For Britton, the bond that we have with the sea is the starting point for positive social
and environmental change.<fnref n="9" /> As a source of inspiration for her work and creative pursuits, it is
in her first book that she published in 2021, *Saltwater in the Blood: Surfing, Natural Cycles
and the Sea's Power to Heal*, that she describes an osmosis between herself and the sea,
blending both fact and personal story within her narrative. Britton immerses herself in the sea,
through which she explores her watery roots and how they have guided her throughout her life.
Her narrative is divided into six parts. Through them, she explores her watery heritage, the pull
of the sea and its influence on her body and mind, and how saltwater acts as a healing property.
She concludes her book with its prevailing theme: restoring our connection to the sea.
Alongside her narrative, Britton weaves in her poems and art that were inspired by her own
connection to the sea. According to Irish nature writer Kerri ní Dochartaigh, Britton’s narrative
is

one of resilience, strength and the nourishing power of the sea. This is a moving tale of one woman's exploration of her own self and beloved blue sea; a touching reminder of how interwoven every living creature is to the other, and how important it is to learn to live alongside every species on the planet with respect and love. (Britton, *Saltwater* praise)

*Saltwater in the Blood's* narrative is that of the sea and of its ability to connect people, nonhumans, and the environment together, which in turn favors friendship and care. Britton's own story of her life with the sea illustrates how interwoven she is with her environment and how she shares a playful and creative intimacy with the sea.

By drawing from the blue humanities and ecofeminism, this master's thesis will study
how the sea surges through Liz Clark's *Swell* and Easkey Britton's *Saltwater in the Blood*,
thereby allowing a more fluid becoming. It will explore how Clark and Britton's caring and
mindful approach to their watery ecosystems recognizes the shore within their narratives, not
as a border, but as a body of water that takes on a myriad of shapes and forms and as a place

<footnote n="8">⁸ Britton, Easkey. "The Playful Edge." *Op. cit.*, 54:20.</footnote>

<footnote n="9">⁹ Hill, Lauren L. *She Surf*. *Op. cit.*, 150.</footnote>
from which identity may arise, thereby displaying a more fluid and intimate embodiment that
points to the relational quality of saltwater.

Despite finding its roots in the 1960s environmental social movements, ecocriticism as
a discipline only emerged in the 1990s. Academic criticism in the 1960s was poststructuralism,
which represented a disjuncture between representation and reality, and did not adhere to the
values of ecocriticism, thereby explaining the delay in scholarship.<fnref n="10" /> As ecocriticism emerged
as an academic discipline, three waves of ecocriticism were delineated. The first comprised of
early 19th century nature writing, with writers such as Wordsworth, for British Romanticism, or
Thoreau, for American Transcendentalism, that valued the significance of life with that of
nature. Second-wave ecocriticism, in turn, became more aware of relationality and the
representation of nature.<fnref n="11" /> An example would be Lawrence Buell, who, in the introduction to
his 1995 book *The Environmental Imagination*, endeavors to define ecocriticism. He argues
that an environmentally oriented work must comprise of four elements. First, the nonhuman
environment is not a mere backdrop to the narrative but an active presence that thereby suggests
that humans are deeply entwined with nature.<fnref n="12" /> Second, human interest is not the only one at
stake within the book (7). Third, the text's ethical orientation includes human accountability to
the environment, whereupon there will be an awareness of a human's ecological footprint (7).
Fourth, the environment is a process and not given for granted, pointing out how nature is never
static but continuously changing and evolving (7–8). Despite Buell reminding the reader that
there is a real nature out there, the vision of nature he presents (10) could be said to be
fragmented and distant, as the real world is lost in representation. Third-wave ecocriticism, on
the other hand, focuses on intersectionality and materiality, thereby recognizing the material
components of our representations and balancing material reality with textual critique.<fnref n="13" /> Third-
wave ecocriticism gives us a new material understanding of the environment and the text
(Tebokkel). One of the main critiques of traditional nature writing Karla Armbruster notes
upon, is that it “reinforces a vision of culture and nature as separate or even opposed, a vision
that many environmental thinkers find at the root of environmental crises.”<fnref n="14" /> Third-wave

<footnote n="10">¹⁰ Heise, Ursula. "The Hitchhiker's Guide to Ecocriticism." *PMLA*, vol. 121, no. 2, March 2006, pp. 503–516.
*JSTOR*, www.jstor.org/stable/25486328. 2023, 505–6.</footnote>

<footnote n="11">¹¹ Tebokkel, Nathan. "Oryx and Crake, chs. 1–3: Margaret Atwood and Dana Phillips." ENGL-393 Ecocriticism, 2 Mar. 2023, University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Lecture.</footnote>

<footnote n="12">¹² Buell, Lawrence. "Introduction." *The Environmental Imagination: Thoreau, Nature Writing, and the Formation of American Culture*, Harvard UP, Cambridge, 1995, pp. 1–27, 7.</footnote>

<footnote n="13">¹³ Tebokkel, Nathan. "Oryx and Crake." *Op. cit.*</footnote>

<footnote n="14">¹⁴ Armbruster, Karla. "Nature Writing." *Keywords for Environmental Studies*, edited by Joni Adamson, et al., editors, New York UP, 2016, pp. 156–158. *ProQuest*, ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.univ-paris3.fr/lib/sorbnouv/detail.action?docID=4206299, 157.</footnote>
ecocriticism, by focusing on materiality, could then present a reconciliation between nature and culture, and propose new ways of living with the environment. However, the very definition of nature itself poses a problem. Kate Soper reveals how nature is

an idea we employ with such ease and regularity that it seems as if we ourselves are privileged with some 'natural' access to its intelligibility, but also an idea which most of us know, in some sense, to be so various and comprehensive in its use as to defy our powers and definition.<fnref n="15" />

Nature is at once perceived and used freely, but Soper's definition also points to the impossibility of ever encapsulating the whole meaning of nature; it can only be partly known. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the latter understanding of nature is only available to "most of us," indicating that some may not grasp its complexity. Indeed, nature "refers us to the object of the natural and biological sciences; to issues in metaphysics concerning the differing modes of being of the natural and the human, and to the environment and its various non-human forms of life" (2), thereby pointing to the various ways in which nature may be understood. Furthermore, one person's understanding of nature may differ from another's, which is why ecocriticism's intersectional approach may further help us understand nature through its various expressions and interpretations. Nevertheless, Ursula Heise argues how

[i]n earlier types of environmental scholarship, nature tended to be envisioned as a victim of modernization but also as its opposite and alternative; nature is now more often viewed as inextricably entwined with modernity – both as a concept and in the material shape in which we experience it today. More than that, environmentalists and ecocritics have begun to see how their search for a more authentic relation to nature is itself a product of modernization.<fnref n="16" />

That is, while earlier academic criticism noticed a divide between nature and culture in traditional nature writing, it is today not seen as separate but can even be understood as created, to some extent, by humans. Ecocriticism today attempts to think beyond dualities (506–7). Contemporary ecocriticism then asks the following questions: How do humans relate to nature? How do language and art mediate that relationship? Can we, as animals, better our relationship with nonhuman nature? (504). However, as Buell notes, environmental writing has traditionally been a male domain,<fnref n="17" /> whereupon the recovery of environmentally conscious works by women may reveal different understandings of nature.

<footnote n="15">¹⁵ Soper, Kate. "Introduction." *What Is Nature?*, 1st ed., Wiley-Blackwell, Hoboken, 1995, pp. 1–14, 1.</footnote>

<footnote n="16">¹⁶ Heise, Ursula. "The Hitchhiker." *Op. cit.*, 508.</footnote>

<footnote n="17">¹⁷ Buell, Lawrence. "Introduction." *Op. cit.*, 16.</footnote>
Women and nature are an age-old association that, in the words of Carolyn Merchant, “has persisted throughout culture, language and history,”<fnref n="18" /> thereby revealing that how we treat “mother nature” and women runs deep. Ecofeminism finds its origins in second-wave feminism and the environmental social movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Second-wave feminism aimed to expose the cost of a competitive world and how women and nature have often been viewed as psychological and recreational resources for men (xxi). The ecology movement intended to restore balance to nature and promote a way of living that went hand in hand with nature’s cycles and was thereby not exploitative or linear (xxi). Merchant then explains how

[j]uxtaposing the goals of the two movements can suggest new values and social structures, based not on the domination of women and nature as resources but on the full expression of both male and female talent and on the maintenance of environmental integrity. (xix)

Merging two movements together enables creativity to arise, which is also reminiscent of how environmentally conscious work also goes hand in hand with nature. At the crossroads of two movements, ecofeminism analyzes and compares the oppression done to women to that done to nature and then proceeds to observe their similarities, all while presenting itself as a space of great potential from which various ideas may emerge. By the 1980s, ecofeminism had grown in influence and started to divide itself into two main branches: radical ecofeminism, which aims to end the harmful associations made between women and nature, which often have negative side effects, and cultural ecofeminism, which, on the contrary, supports these associations because women are more intimately connected and sensitive to nature.<fnref n="19" /> Although ecofeminists do not always agree on what ecofeminism actually is, the common thread of this school of thought is that of challenging—as revealed by Janis Birkeland—“the presumed necessity of power relationships. It is about changing from a morality based on ‘power over’ to one based on reciprocity and responsibility (‘power to’).”<fnref n="20" /> Or, in other words, moving from a hierarchy to a heterarchy would, like ecocriticism, promote interconnectedness. However, this interconnectedness would be true to the bringing together of feminism and ecology, whereupon cultural diversity, empathy for all life, working with the land, mutual respect, and balance (20) would be the values and social structures promoted by ecofeminism. Nonetheless, Lori Gruen points out that the associations between women and nature, which Merchant reveals as long-

<footnote n="18">¹⁸ Merchant, Carolyn. "Introduction: Women and Ecology." *The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution*, Harper and Row, San Francisco, 1990, pp. xix–xxiv, xix.</footnote>

<footnote n="19">¹⁹ Miles, Kathryn. "Ecofeminism." *Encyclopaedia Britannica Online*. 14 Nov. 2013. [academic-eb-com.ezproxy.univ-paris3.fr/levels/collegiate/article/ecofeminism/605372](http://academic-eb-com.ezproxy.univ-paris3.fr/levels/collegiate/article/ecofeminism/605372). Accessed 21 May 2022.</footnote>

<footnote n="20">²⁰ Birkeland, Janis. "Ecofeminism: Linking Theory and Practice." *Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature*, edited by Greta Gaard, Temple UP, Philadelphia, 1993, pp. 13–59. *Ethics and Action*, 19.</footnote>
established and that has been long regarded as a truth, is “a constructed connection that has been created by the patriarchy as a means of oppression.”<fnref n="21" /> Therefore, not only does one reveal how the other is treated, but their association has further acted as a means to oppress them both. According to Gruen, dismissing the woman-nature association created by patriarchy would hopefully encourage women to create their own connections to nature without the influence of patriarchy. However, this may prove difficult as the women-nature association is age-old and will therefore require the untangling of the vast net of those associations. Nevertheless, as Linda Vance suggests, “we simply have to be doing something, and seeing the connectedness of it all, and not undoing or denying each other’s work.”<fnref n="22" /> Re-envisioning the world would necessitate unity and solidarity instead of dissent. Following ecofeminism, ecofeminist literary theory, which developed in the 1990s, aims to reveal feminist and ecological themes in works by both women and men.<fnref n="23" /> Patrick D. Murphy suggests that an ecofeminist dialogics would

> not conflate particularities or subordinate one to the other. Such an integration can produce a new perception of the relationship of humanity and world, and a praxis that works toward the decentering dealienation of andro/anthropocentric humanism and the reintegrative, affirmative dissolution of the intellectual isolation of radical skepticism.<fnref n="24" />

An ecofeminist dialogics would then suggest that works deemed ecofeminist are in constant conversation with nature: when authors write, they are writing with nature, or nature is writing through them, whereupon the merging of two voices may give rise to a unique literature based on interconnectedness and relationality. Accordingly, they would be in constant dialogue with the world around them, which would allow them to overcome separation of nature from culture in traditional nature writing, whereupon the environment becomes a backdrop for “spiritual transcendence.”<fnref n="25" /> Greta Gaard and Murphy observe how another aspect of ecofeminist literary theory is “the recognition and positive identification of otherness as non-alien, healthy diversity becomes a fundamental recognition of ecofeminism. ... Another step is to perceive the self-

<footnote n="21">²¹ Gruen, Lori. “Dismantling Oppression: An Analysis of the Connection Between Women and Animal.” *Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature*, edited by Greta Gaard, Temple UP, Philadelphia, 1993, pp. 60–90. Ethics and Action, 61.</footnote>

<footnote n="22">²² Vance, Linda. “Ecofeminism and the Politics of Reality.” *Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature*, edited by Greta Gaard, Temple UP, Philadelphia, 1993, pp. 118–145. Ethics and Action, 135.</footnote>

<footnote n="23">²³ Murphy, Patrick D. “‘The Women Are Speaking’: Contemporary Literature as Theoretical Critique.” *Ecofeminist Literary Criticism: Theory, Interpretation, Pedagogy*, edited by Greta Gaard and Patrick D. Murphy, U of Illinois P, Urbana, 1998, pp. 23–48. The Environment and the Human Condition, 45.</footnote>

<footnote n="24">²⁴ Murphy, Patrick D. *Literature, Nature and Other: Ecofeminist Critiques*. State University of New York, Albany, 1995, 3.</footnote>

<footnote n="25">²⁵ Armbruster, Karla. “Nature writing.” *Op. cit.*, 157.</footnote>
other relationship as one of interanimation, as mutual co-creation.”<fnref n="26" /> It thus entails a need for positive diversity and difference, something that ecofeminists do as they write hand-in-hand with nature, whereupon nonhuman nature becomes an active participant in the formation of a narrative. This process of co-creation is often seen as beneficial for personal growth as it recognizes both women and nature as co-constitutive. By then extending their perspectives to that of nature and nonhumans, thus integrating their voices into their narratives, ecofeminist literature allows both women and nature to be free from the nature-culture separation, and offers them a new way to perceive nature that breaks away from the literary tradition.<fnref n="27" /> Donna Haraway, in the introduction to her book *When Species Meet*, further reorients our understanding of the material world. She argues how relations precede a being and how, what she calls companion species, change our environment and behavior as we do to them, thereby revealing how we emerge from relationships.<fnref n="28" /> The co-constitutive aspect of Haraway’s companion species privileges interconnectedness, relationality, and complexity. By interacting intimately with their environment, ecofeminists recognize the latter as co-constitutive and as a source of knowledge, whereupon, thanks to their narratives, they give subjectivity back to nature. Reading Clark and Britton’s narratives from an ecofeminist perspective would allow us to see how interconnected both of these women are with their nonhuman environment and, more importantly, how it may give rise to new values and ways of surfing. Throughout their narratives, they are themselves creating their own connection to nature that is not informed by a patriarchal society, but by the dialogue that they have with the shore. Their own path to self-discovery leads them to write hand-in-hand with nature, which recognizes the latter as their own companion species: influential and an agent in the world. Nevertheless, as Merchant argued, juxtaposing feminism with the ecology movement gave rise to ecofeminism, but merging the latter with the blue humanities may uncover how the sea acts as an agent in their narrative, thereby giving rise to new understandings of the sea by granting us another perspective on the latter.

What Elizabeth DeLoughrey calls the “oceanic turn” has recently been expanding in environmental scholarship, that is, the environmental humanities and ecocriticism.<fnref n="29" /> More

<footnote n="26">²⁶ Gaard, Greta and Patrick D. Murphy. “Introduction.” *Ecofeminist Literary Criticism: Theory, Interpretation, Pedagogy*, edited by Greta Gaard and Patrick D. Murphy, U of Illinois P, Urbana, 1998, pp. 1–13. The Environment and the Human Condition, 6.</footnote>

<footnote n="27">²⁷ Murphy, Patrick D. “The Women.” *Op. cit.*, 24.</footnote>

<footnote n="28">²⁸ Haraway, Donna J. “When Species Meet: Introductions.” *When Species Meet*, U of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, MN, 2007, pp. 3–42. *ProQuest*, ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ubc/detail.action?docID=328400, 4.</footnote>

<footnote n="29">²⁹ DeLoughrey, Elizabeth. “The Oceanic Turn: Submarine Futures of the Anthropocene.” *Humanities for the Environment: Integrating Knowledge, Forging New Constellations of Practice*, edited by Joni Adamson and</footnote>
commonly known as the blue humanities, this area of study focuses on works that hold a sensitivity and awareness to water and the myriad of ways in which it expresses itself. Basing itself on science studies, the blue humanities combine scientific knowledge with the arts and humanities to explore the ways in which scholarly work, literature, art, etc. ““think with water.””<fnref n="30" /> DeLoughrey traces the oceanic turn of environmental scholarship back to the 1945 Truman Proclamation, which remapped the globe with Exclusive Economic Zones, thereby bringing about a “scramble for the oceans” (242). Afterwards, the post-1970s ““spatial turn”” in geography gave rise to new studies in globalization and diasporas that allowed a new understanding of the ocean as a historical space (243). More recently, the 1990s “post-independence melancholia” recognized the ocean as a site of fluidity that allowed space for possibility as it was “seemingly outside of the territorial and legislative limitations of the state” (243). As oceanic interest in scholarship is slowly building, Steve Mentz remarks that “[i]n our current cultural moment of ecologism, environmentalism, and ecocriticism, what seems surprising is not a new interest in the sea, but that maritime concerns have taken so long to penetrate literary ecologies.”<fnref n="31" /> Indeed, Sidney I. Dobrin in his book *Blue Ecocriticism and the Oceanic Imperative*, argues how “[b]lue ecocriticism promotes oceanic awareness” by making “ecocriticism aware of its own oceanic deficiencies” and by encouraging “a more global awareness of matters oceanic.”<fnref n="32" /> Today, not only does the sea holds less and less importance in our day-to-day lives and becomes only a mere backdrop,<fnref n="33" /> but as Mentz and Dobrin point out, it has also taken time for the sea to hold academic interest. However, as Mentz argues, a “new maritime perspective does not view the oceans simply as bodies to be crossed, but as subjects in themselves” (997), which thereby points to a rise in awareness as the ocean takes on an active role in our lives and becomes a subject of scholarly interest. Additionally, DeLoughrey points out how recent discourses recognize submersion as capable of “produc[ing] alternative knowledges and ontologies,” which is due to the sea’s fluid nature as being able to dissolve, circulate, and diffract.<fnref n="34" /> The sea could then give rise to narratives that reveal new watery relationships humans have with their environment, and how it may dissolve the separation

<footnote>Michael Davis, 1st ed., Routledge, London, 2017, pp. 242–258. *Taylor and Francis Online*, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315642659. Routledge Environmental Humanities, 242.</footnote>

<footnote n="30">³⁰ Alaimo, Stacy. “Introduction: Science Studies and the Blue Humanities.” *Configurations*, vol. 27, no. 4, 2019, pp. 429–432. *Project Muse*, https://doi.org/10.1353/con.2019.0028, 429.</footnote>

<footnote n="31">³¹ Mentz, Steve. “Toward a Blue Critical Studies: The Sea, Maritime Culture, and Early Modern English Literature.” *Literature Compass*, vol. 6, no. 5, 2009, pp. 997–1013. *Wiley Online Library*, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-4113.2009.00655.x, 1000.</footnote>

<footnote n="32">³² Dobrin, Sidney I. “Unearthing ecocriticism.” *Blue Ecocriticism and the Oceanic Imperative*, Routledge, Abingdon, 2021, pp. 1–87. Routledge Environmental Humanities, 9.</footnote>

<footnote n="33">³³ Mentz, Steve. “Blue Critical Studies.” *Op. cit.*, 998.</footnote>

<footnote n="34">³⁴ DeLoughrey, Elizabeth. “The Oceanic Turn.” *Op. cit.*, 249, 244.</footnote>
between nature and culture.<fnref n="35" /> Nevertheless, by producing alternative knowledges, the sea points to an ecofeminist juxtaposition that favors the creation of new values based on interconnectedness, and the blue humanities themselves comprise various disciplines and may combine them. Thereby, merging ecofeminism with the blue humanities may give rise to new interpretations and expressions of the sea. Furthermore, the sea itself has not been free from the harmful associations made between women and nature. Gaston Bachelard, in his book *Water and Dreams*, despite proposing various symbolic characteristics of water, reinforces the associations made between women and nature and posits feminine water as “becom[ing] the heroine of gentleness and purity,” further analogizing it to a life-generative milk, whereupon “water must be sweet like milk.”<fnref n="36" /> However, the sea, as a fluid space, resists grounding and takes on a myriad of shapes and forms. The sea would thereby dissolve this association, allowing women to create their own relationship with the sea. Stacy Alaimo argues how the blue humanities require the sciences to further develop, as “most aquatic zones, species, and topics exist beyond human domains, requiring the mediation of science and technology.”<fnref n="37" /> Since we cannot enter the sea permanently, understanding it materially requires the use of science and technology to translate observations into facts and help us further understand it. In the preface to her 1961 edition of *The Sea Around Us*, Carson points to the unknowability of the sea, explaining how “[t]he sea has always challenged the minds and imagination of men ... It is a realm so vast and so difficult of access that with all our efforts we have explored only a small fraction of its area.”<fnref n="38" /> Presented as a place that is both mysterious and vast, Carson reveals how the sciences are always shedding light on the sea; since the publication of her book in the 1950s, a vast amount of research has been done about the sea, thereby pointing to how our knowledge of the seas is always changing and evolving. However, Alaimo also explains how the sciences require the arts and humanities to understand water, as “highly aestheticized aquatic figures underscore how the arts and humanities are essential for understanding the scientific captures and dissemination of particular narratives, tropes and styles across science, literature, art, popular culture, and activism.”<fnref n="39" /> The sea is then seen to act as both a very physical place and a creative one that expresses itself through literature or art, for instance, that then translates scientific knowledge into narratives, and so on. Accordingly, much like the shore that

<footnote n="35">³⁵ Armbruster, Karla. "Nature writing." *Op. cit.*, 157.</footnote>

<footnote n="36">³⁶ Bachelard, Gaston. "The Supremacy of Fresh Water." *Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Matter*, translated by Edith R. Farrell, The Pegasus Foundation, Dallas, 1982, pp. 151–157. The Bachelard Translations, 151, 157.</footnote>

<footnote n="37">³⁷ Alaimo, Stacy. "Introduction." *Op. cit.*, 429.</footnote>

<footnote n="38">³⁸ Carson, Rachel L. *The Sea Around Us*; *Introduction by Sylvia Earle*. Oxford UP, Oxford, 2018, xix.</footnote>

<footnote n="39">³⁹ Alaimo, Stacy. "Introduction." *Op. cit.*, 431.</footnote>
brings together the land and the sea, the blue humanities require a dialogue between two
disciplines to better understand the sea and how it manifests itself both creatively and
physically. Furthermore, reminiscent of Haraway, Christoph Singer argues that the shore is a
contact zone, whereupon an encounter allows two subjects or more to inform and deconstruct
each other.<fnref n="40" /> Recognizing the sea as a subject would allow it to become a companion species
that informs another and is influenced in turn. Nevertheless, as a contact zone, the shore
generates liminalities that, according to Singer, imply the transgression, reducing, and
dissolution of binaries (15). The blue humanities may then lend a hand to ecofeminism to
overcome the age-old association made between women and nature and allow them to create
their own relationship with nature. Furthermore, the fluid nature of water would permit a
dissolution of the nature-culture separation, thereby giving rise to narratives that see nature as
an agent, and offering new perspectives on humans’ relationship to the sea and the environment.
Indeed, “the liminal space in between, the suture that connects both … is ever changing” as it
is a “space that metaphorically connects, fosters and makes the hybridization of discourse
possible in the first place” (32). The shore as a liminal space would favor interconnectedness,
and what emerges from thereon is a dynamic watery knowledge and creativity that is unique to
water as it becomes relational and fluid, thereby expanding our own understanding of water
through a process of co-creation. As Steve Mentz proposes, thinking with the ocean creates a
dynamic language of its own<fnref n="41" /> as it requires a dialogue to be established between two
disciplines and two bodies of water.

As a genre that is a meeting place for other literary genres, the boundaries of travel
writing have been termed “fuzzy” by Carl Thompson<fnref n="42" /> as the genre can encompass memoirs,
guidebooks, fiction, and so on. At the crossroads of various disciplines, travel writing as a
literary genre characterized itself in the 19th century as scientific and factual, whereas nowadays
it can be said to be more personal and anecdotal (4). However, in the 1970s, the style of writing
was called into question, and nowadays there are two leading visions of the genre:
contemporary travel writing as a tool with which the traveler explores their globalized
environment or contemporary travel writing as a means to escape the latter (4, 5). Nevertheless,
what can be interesting to note is how, through travel, these differences are overcome and even

<footnote n="40">⁴⁰ Singer, Christoph. “Transformative Shores – An Introduction.” *Sea Change: The Shore from Shakespeare to Banville*, edited by Christoph Ehland and Chris Thurgar-Dawson, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 2014, pp. 11–65. Spatial Practices: An Interdisciplinary Series in Cultural History, Geography and Literature, 11.</footnote>

<footnote n="41">⁴¹ Alaimo, Stacy. “Introduction.” *Op. cit.*, 432.</footnote>

<footnote n="42">⁴² Thompson, Carl. *Travel Writing*. 1st ed., Routledge, London, 2011. The New Critical Idiom, 26.</footnote>
blend in with the author's own experience thanks to their movement through space (9). As a matter of fact, according to Alexandra Ganser, identity is always changing, evolving, and traveling in a sense, thus revealing how traveling points to the performative aspect of identity as a mobile becoming.<fnref n="43" /> Today, however, travel writing is often denied credibility, which could either be due to its entertainment aspect or due to the fact that it adopts various writing styles, which, thereby reminiscent of identity and the sea's own fluidity, may instead prove the malleability of travel writing.<fnref n="44" /> This amalgamation of, say, diary entries, photos, drawings, prose, etc., could further be evocative of ecofeminism's need for positive identification of diversity: constructing a work from various sources with which they interacted would reflect the dialogue that occurred between them both. While quoting Debbie Lisle, Thompson remarks how "travel writers today generally 'frame encounters with others in positive ways,' so as to 'reveal moments of empathy, [...] realisations of equality, and insights into shared values'" (154). Encountering others in a positive way is a step towards balance. However, while ecofeminists also represent others in a positive light, they also go a step further and grant them agency; they would then transcend the limitations of the genre to create a vision of the world that is relational. Nevertheless, women have been written out of this narrative, and it was only in the 1970s with second-wave feminism that feminist academics recovered the works of female travel writers (171). These women travel writers' works dismantle the stereotypes often associated with women, notably the separation of spheres.<fnref n="45" /> Albeit, their travel writings are unique as they also undergo a psychological journey in parallel to their movement through the world. Susan L. Roberson argues that it is through their writings that these traveling women relate how they position themselves in an ever-changing world (215). By then exploring how they interact with the land, we can learn how a moving environment may help them undergo a transformation of consciousness<fnref n="46" /> that sees the land not as foreign but familiar.

Since the 1990s, with the emergence of ecofeminist literature, there has been a renewed interest in women's environmental literature. Many works have been re-read from an ecofeminist as well as a blue humanities perspective, such as *The Sea Around Us* by Rachel Carson. Clark and Britton's narratives follow in Carson's footsteps as they reveal an ecological sensitivity toward the sea, with which they interact intimately. Although stepping away from a

<footnote n="43">⁴³ Ganser, Alexandra. *Roads of Her Own: Gendered Space and Mobility in American Women's Road Narratives, 1970-2000*. Rodopi, Amsterdam, 2009, 25.</footnote>

<footnote n="44">⁴⁴ Thompson, Carl. *Travel Writing, Op. cit.*, 31, 18, 86–7.</footnote>

<footnote n="45">⁴⁵ Roberson, Susan L. "American Women and Travel Writing." *The Cambridge Companion to American Travel Writing*, edited by Alfred Bendixen and Judith Hamera, Cambridge UP, Cambridge, 2009, pp. 214–227, 217.</footnote>

<footnote n="46">⁴⁶ Vance, Linda. "Ecofeminism." *Op. cit.*, 140.</footnote>
more scientific approach, their narratives base themselves on their lived experience of the sea, all while being ecologically aware of their own impact on it. Therefore, essential for the further development of the blue humanities, their works reveal how scientific knowledge of the sea (i.e., how to surf, navigate, dive, the names of flora and fauna, etc.), but more importantly, its materiality, leads to a watery embodiment that is unique to their own personal knowledge of the sea. Their narratives reveal how gender issues are still present at sea: a dualistic mindset has often prevailed in competitive surfing since the popularization of the sport in the mid-1970s,<fnref n="47" /> where performance was valued over fun, which translated itself into the masculinization of the sport along with the rise of sexism (80–1). This led to women being denied their identity as surfers. Free-surfer Leah Dawson explains how

'the story of women's surf culture has always adhered to men's objectives. Always been told by men, in companies run by and listening to men's perspectives. I think the women's surf industry is at a fascinating time where it can take its own story back and redefine itself in terms of inner beauty, self-respect, of being different because we are different, or elegance, grace, and one day, of great spirituality.'<fnref n="48" />

As Dawson explains, even though women have been pushed to the sidelines of the surfing community, the latter is at a turning point where someone's style of surfing, interactions with the marine environment, and subsequent narratives or art have become the recent focus of attention. Accordingly, bringing women's surf literature to center stage would take on an ecofeminist approach, focused on a sensibility that encourages respect and empathy towards each other: human others and nonhuman others. But it would also, with the blue humanities, reveal a feminine, watery embodiment that would point to other ways of interacting with the sea. With this in mind, Clark and Britton demonstrate how their journey of self-discovery was found in parallel to their marine environment. From the sea, they learn to be, but they also understand themselves through water, with the sea thereby presenting itself as a creative force that offers them a new form of embodiment and being. As women of the sea, they bring a personal vision to surfing: by surfing and living with their moving environment, they themselves become an ecotone, connecting with its inhabitants and lending their voices to that of nature. Accordingly, by moving with intimacy, an osmosis takes place between woman and nature. Clark and Britton's works show how they learn to *be* their environment. Their narratives are then innovative as they break away from the masculine side of surf culture and create their

<footnote n="47">⁴⁷ Stedman, Leanne. "From Gidget to Gonad Man: Surfers, Feminists and Postmodernisation." *The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology*, vol. 33, no. 1, 1997, pp. 75-90. *Sage Journals*, https://doi.org/10.1177/144078339703300106, 79.</footnote>

<footnote n="48">⁴⁸ Hill, Lauren L. *She Surf. Op. cit.*, 92.</footnote>
own. Following the blue humanities, their narratives present a new dynamic knowledge of the sea that sees it as a relational and creative space that is an agent in the forming of their narratives and identities as surfers and women.

Nevertheless, despite women's surf literature's relevance from a blue humanities and ecofeminist point of view, it still remains a subject that has not received a lot of academic attention. As the founding principles of this movement aim to reveal works with a watery sensibility and thereby recognize the uniting quality of women and nature's literature, Clark and Britton's are even more interesting as they demonstrate an intimacy with the sea that is a source of their own femininity and identity. Furthermore, not only are they multidisciplinary in genre, weaving together the blue humanities with ecofeminism, all while offering a new perspective on the sport of surfing as a process of co-creation between woman and wave, but they also are in voice: these female surfers listen to the sea and its inhabitants, then transcribe what they feel and hear; they translate experience into narrative. This master's thesis will study the blue humanities and ecofeminist potential of women's surf literature, all while putting emphasis on the rediscovery of femininity thanks to the care that is given toward the sea.

It is thanks to their movement through space and the forging of their path that these women of the sea put themselves on a level playing field that, in turn, allows them to proceed to a rediscovery—based on listening, sharing, and intimacy—of the marine environment. With this, a better understanding and, thus, writing of the sea can be done. Finally, free from prejudices and by connecting with the sea, the intimacy these women—free from any barriers—bring to the sea allows an osmosis to take place between woman and sea.
# I. Engaging with the moving environment: journeying to the thresholds of sea and self

When Carolyn Merchant argued that women and nature are an age-old association,<fnref n="49" /> she pointed to how it led to the domination of both women and nature, which then established them as separate. While these associations are not as acute as they once were, they can still be perceived and felt to this day. From thereon, an ecofeminist perspective aims to subvert these harmful associations and help to reveal how they are still at play not only in the surfing world but also for women who travel. As women have been removed from the surf scene by being hypersexualized and objectified, where femininity equates with “wearing tiny swimwear,”<fnref n="50" /> so too has the sea been objectified by being divided by human cartography.<fnref n="51" /> However, as Sidney I. Dobrin reveals, all “‘bodies’ of saltwater that cover the planet are connected, or, more accurately, are a singular body,” (21) thereby pointing to how the sea “makes fissures, cracks, and crevices, seeping and saturating, never contained, always circulating, flowing, spilling outside of imagined basins” (2). As a fluid milieu, the sea resists classification and grounding and, in doing so, allows these associations to dissolve and for women to create their own identities within the surfing world and relationship with the sea. Furthermore, Christoph Singer points to the lack of women’s shore narratives,<fnref n="52" /> hinting at how they may in turn reveal a new knowledge and understanding of the sea that is not divided or separate from the surfing body. Women’s watery, environmentally conscious work may further give rise to new forms of dynamic knowledge and embodiment that are true to their own relationship with the sea. Female surfers and travel writers Liz Clark and Easkey Britton then move in a world that first requires a balancing act: surf culture and travel writing have often undermined women’s contributions. However, through their interactions with the sea, they manage to negotiate their way around classifications, liberating the sea itself by offering another perspective on the sea that aims to go beyond traditional separations. Accordingly, they create in the process their own way of moving with the surfed wave: water-dancing, and thus establish a process of *becoming* with the sea.

<footnote n="49">⁴⁹ Merchant, Carolyn. “Introduction.” *Op. cit.*, xix.</footnote>

<footnote n="50">⁵⁰ Hill, Lauren L. *She Surf. Op. cit.*, 148–49.</footnote>

<footnote n="51">⁵¹ Dobrin, Sidney I. “Unearthing Ecocriticism.” *Op. cit.*, 1.</footnote>

<footnote n="52">⁵² Singer, Christoph. “Transformative shores.” *Op. cit.*, 1.</footnote>
1. The “mapping of the self”: re-writing initiatory quests

In 1994, Bruce Brown brings his movie *The Endless Summer II* to a close by saying that: “surfers are travelers and so are the waves they ride.”<fnref n="53" /> While the waves that they surf are born out of storms thousands of miles away from the coast, surfers themselves are drawn to the breaks where the waves end their journeys and surfers begin theirs. Engaging with the moving water, in a constant process of returning to the sea, surfers are influenced by the elements: a change in the forecast, a distant storm, a shift in wind direction. Their lives move with that of the sea.

Quest, which comes from the Latin *quaerere*—to ask, to seek<fnref n="54" />—highlights the psychological and physical dimension of initiatory quests and how a deeper understanding of the moving landscape can lead to self-realization. It infers that the self-realization that is often depicted in initiatory quests, is intrinsically tied to the environment through which the traveler moves. By favoring an approach to travel literature that would highlight the agency and understanding between the traveler and landscape, these narratives as initiatory quests would lead to a better understanding of self and the environment. In *Voyages et Migrations*, a book co-authored by Laure Canadas, Jaine Chemmachery and Anne-Florence Quaireau, the authors argue that “[t]ravel is viewed not just as a way of moving from point A to point B, but also as a possibility for exploring the world, and even an experience which can lead the subject to know more about himself or herself.”<fnref n="55" /> The movement through space granted by travel, offers the traveler to experience the discovery of both land and self. In this vein, the traveler’s journey towards self-realization—most often and traditionally represented in travel literature through an initiatory quest—is intrinsically tied to the land. It would be interesting to see what level of agency the land, or the sea, then has in the traveler’s journey towards self-realization. An initiatory quest suggests the crossing of a border, would it be psychological or physical. It is a movement forward, indicating that something is left behind. It is a process of *becoming*. In this vein, initiatory quests can be linked to the concept of transiency that, according to Alexandra Ganser, highlights the ever-changing aspect of identity and landscape:

<footnote n="53">⁵³ *The Endless Summer II*. Directed by Bruce Brown, screenplay by Bruce Brown and Dana Brown, New Line Cinema, 1994, 1:40:27.</footnote>

<footnote n="54">⁵⁴ “Quest, n.2.” *OED Online*, Oxford UP, March 2023, www.oed.com/view/Entry/156332. Accessed 14 Apr. 2023.</footnote>

<footnote n="55">⁵⁵ Canadas, Laure, et al. *Voyages Et Migrations*. Atlande, Neuilly, 2020. Clefs Concours : Dossier Anglais, 30.</footnote>
[I]t emphasizes the fact that identity is always already in transition, a constant process, and historically contingent; as a consequence, this relativity dismantles essentialism and ‘being-s’ by pointing to the performative aspects of identity and embodiment – a constant becoming. As a gendered and racial(ized) subject, then, any person is also always acting out, performing, or even simulating embodied surfaces – surfaces often taken as the materialization of some inner nature and essence of gender and ethnicity. (25)

This would suggest that women who travel are constantly responding and adapting to their environment, and as a result evolve alongside it. Furthermore, their environment is also perceived through the prism of their own gendered subjectivity. Transiency in travel literature thus points to the ever-shifting aspect of identity and environment, and how enmeshed they are.

Historically, the initiatory quest, or journey of self-discovery, was traditionally represented by the Grand Tour in the 17th and 18th centuries. It was also known as a cultural pilgrimage, where the aim of the journey was that of pleasurable learning.<fnref n="56" /> The educational purposes of this form of initiatory quest included no self-realization. It is also interesting to note that it was mainly the young male elite who participated in those travels. As such, the journey undertaken was construed as a “demonstration of manhood” that would only “consolidate” their pre-existing masculinity.<fnref n="57" /> In this vein, the initiatory quest would only strengthen the claim of male dominance over their moving environment, and to another extent, women. Travel in this vein is from the realm of the masculine, and can thus be used as a tool through which to exert dominance. As a consequence, femininity is not associated with travelling, but with the home and the static. For a woman, stepping outside the boundaries of the home has long been regarded as an act of transgression (Ganser 21). Seeing travel as a predominantly male activity would reinforce dichotomies that, operating on a social, psychological and physical level, limit women in their movements. Seeing travel as male would furthermore limit their perception of the environment, that may also be thought of as static. Be that as it may, at the turn of the 18th century with the appearance of Romanticism, the initiatory quest became a means through which to attain insight into the self.<fnref n="58" /> Adopting an epiphanic nature, the initiatory quest thus focused on the possibilities of self-realization granted by travel. Furthermore, Romanticism linked these epiphanic moments with nature where “[i]t proposes that when we commune with those forms we live with a peculiar intensity.”<fnref n="59" /> Jonathan Bate further explains how ecopoetics—that is not necessarily synonymous with verse (75)— “is not a description of

<footnote n="56">⁵⁶ Duncan, James, et al. “Introduction.” Introduction. *Writes of Passage Reading Travel Writing*, Routledge, London, 1999, pp. 1–13, 2, 6.</footnote>

<footnote n="57">⁵⁷ Thompson, Carl. *Travel Writing. Op. cit.*, 174.</footnote>

<footnote n="58">⁵⁸ Thompson, Carl. *Travel Writing. Op. cit.*, 115.</footnote>

<footnote n="59">⁵⁹ Bate, Jonathan. *The Song of the Earth*. Picador, London, 2016, 245.</footnote>
dwelling with the earth, not a disengaged thinking about it, but an experiencing of it" (42). In this vein, Romanticism sees nature as the medium through which self-realization is attained, and thus proposes a reunification of the figure of the traveler with their moving environment. It offers a more bodily experience of the landscape in which the traveler is more attuned to their sense of self and that of nature. Nevertheless, while Romanticism highlights the importance of nature in granting the traveler insight into the self, it is often viewed as either "Mother" or a "home," and as such the traveler still exerts dominance over the land that they supposedly "experience" (35). In this vein, these quests cannot claim to know nature, as while they exert domination over nature, the latter becomes alienated in the process. While Romanticism proposes travel as a quest through which nature leads the traveler to self-realization, by ascribing nature with feminine qualities, it sustains both patriarchal hierarchies and its dichotomies that put both women and nature in opposition to men and culture. The latter leads to an alienation of both nature and women. As such, the ecofeminist philosopher Karen J. Warren advances how "in Western societies, whenever there has been a historical identification of women and other human Others with inferior nature, the domination of women and other human Others has been explained and 'justified' by their connection with nonhuman nature."<fnref n="60" /> This shows how an alienated and rationalistic gaze turns nature and women into objects,<fnref n="61" /> and how this still permeates how we see nature today.

Nonetheless, reading women's initiatory quest narratives from an ecofeminist point of view, may provide a new way of understanding the quest as a collaboration between the figure of the traveler and their moving environment. Susan L. Roberson suggests how "spatial practices of mapping the self and making sense of experience, ... provide a way for us to examine how women thought of their position in the world."<fnref n="62" /> For women travelers then, the journey undertaken becomes an initiatory quest as, by not having any clear goal, they let their movement through the world mold them, and in that respect guide them towards self-realization. Thus, following the concept of transiency, this suggests that women travel writers not only undergo an outer journey, but also an inner journey that lies parallel to their moving environment: it is a process of *becoming*. Ganser highlights the "importance of spatial experiences for the construction of identity as a transitory process (rather than something to be embodied or attained) and of the subject as a temporal, relational individuation of a rhizomatic

<footnote n="60">⁶⁰ Warren, Karen. *Ecofeminist Philosophy: A Western Perspective on What It Is and Why It Matters*. Rowman & Littlefield Inc., Lanham, 2000. Studies in Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy, 24.</footnote>

<footnote n="61">⁶¹ Murphy, Patrick D. *Literature. Op. cit.*, 32.</footnote>

<footnote n="62">⁶² Roberson, Susan L. "American Women." *Op. cit.*, 215.</footnote>
network of discourses” (309). Both Roberson and Ganser highlight the importance of the role
that the environment plays in the shaping of the self in women’s travel narratives. In this way,
women’s narratives are unique in the sense that the environment is given agency, as it is both
perceived and felt by the traveler, and thus creates a new way of experiencing and writing the
moving environment. In her book *Roads of Her Own*, Alexandra Ganser identifies three
prominent paradigms of mobility in women’s road narratives since the 1970s (307): the quest
would see the female traveler abandoning one home in the aim of finding another (84); para-
nomadism would recognize the agency of nonlinear space—that, whilst being a home, allows
for change—to shape the female traveler’s identity which also becomes mobile (168, 173); the
picaresque, much like para-nomadism, suggests a *becoming* on the road, but rejects the idea of
the home (257). However, I propose that the malleability of women’s travel narratives suggest
that these paradigms may amalgamate to create a new vision of women’s initiatory quests,
where the moving environment is both the aim and the place of becoming. The ecofeminist
essayist and poet Susan Griffin in her book *Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her*,
remarks that “*space the shape of experience: the form of motion*. Space full of curiosity about
her, and the it is place which records her image.”<fnref n="63" /> In this vein, an ecofeminist reading of
initiatory quests would take on a dialogical approach: a woman and an environment are
influenced by one another. This can further be linked to surfers, whose epiphanic moments are
often found alongside the wave they engage with. The Hawaiian word for surfing *he'e nalu*
stems from the word *nalu*, which on one level means, wave and surf, but on another it also
means “to ponder, meditate, reflect.”<fnref n="64" /> Accordingly, surfing is a quest, a search for the perfect
wave as surfers would say. The word *nalu* links back to the original meaning of the word *quest*:
to seek, and in this way ascertains the fact that surfing, or more accurately the surfed wave,
leads the surfer to self-realization. *Nalu* then illustrates the key role that waves play in the
shaping of identity. As the surfer Dave Rastovich claims, the sea “makes you so vulnerable,
and you just have to step up to challenge after challenge, and you find a depth to yourself, in
your skills, in your coping mechanisms; all these things are revealed.”<fnref n="65" /> Travel literature by
female surfers would reflect the transiency of self and sea, and how by taking the form of an
initiatory quest, the sea can lead them to self-realization.

<footnote n="63">⁶³ Griffin, Susan. *Woman and Nature: The Roaring inside Her*. Harper & Row, New York, 1987, 169.</footnote>

<footnote n="64">⁶⁴ “Nalu.” *Hawaiian Dictionaries*. Ulukau, wehewehe.org/gsdl2.85/cgi-bin/hdict?d=D14093&l=en&e=d-11000-00--off-0hdict--00-1----0-10-0---0---0direct-10-ED--4--textpukuielbert%2Ctextmamaka-----0-1l--11-haw-Zz-1--Zz-1-home-nalu--00-4-1-00-0--4-----0-0-11-00-0utfZz-8-00*. Accessed 15 Oct. 2022.</footnote>

<footnote n="65">⁶⁵ Clark, Liz. “Reinventing Rites.” *Op. cit.*, 30:45</footnote>
Even though it is the surfer who travels to the surf breaks, it is also—much like Bruce Brown said—the waves that travel to the surfer. Both are influenced by one another. As Comer notes:

> The places where surfing happens—the points, piers, beach breaks, jetties, offshore sites, river mouths, reefs—are not mobile. The surfer must go to *them*. Getting to them is often inconvenient and once arrived, what one should do, how best to paddle out and then launch, has to be determined according to real-time conditions. But even though they are immobile, surf spots can change.”<fnref n="66" />

The lineup, where both travel to, to meet, is a moment of self-realization as both the surfer engages on a deeper level with themselves and the wave, and the wave is shaped by the moment of lift: it is when surfer chooses wave and wave chooses surfer. In this way, these narratives can be seen as quest narratives, as they “are primarily motivated by the desire to arrive. This arrival may be linked to an actual geographical or to an imaginary-metaphorical location that represents the idea of a better, more meaningful, more liberated life” (Ganser 33). Accordingly, Britton’s life has always been rhythmmed by a constant return to the sea. Through her lived experience of the sea, her narrative centers itself around this environment and how it shaped her life. As she continually circles back to the shore, the sea she engages with is also seen to be moving, susceptible to change, and forms Britton’s *becoming* from a young age:

> Growing up in this intertidal zone – ever-changing, yet with discernible patterns that shift with the seasons and the moon – I was struck by the fleeting beauty of it all. I also noted the impossibility of resisting the flux and flow of the tide, and yet how particular and lasting the experience is, despite – or perhaps because of – its impermanence. (*Saltwater* 28)

In this passage, she first experiences the transiency of the shore, and notes on how this ever-changing liminal zone left a deep impression on her. She decides to not resist the pull of the tide, and the sea's own transiency permeates into Britton's sense of self. Willing to learn her environment's patterns and understand it, she begins to speak its language. Here, she understands that the sea must be heard, that she must listen to it to be able to engage more intimately with it, and in turn, learn more about herself. Understanding the sea's cycles will then lead her to understand herself. As Ganser notes, “[i]dentity assumes an infinite state of becoming, for it cannot be located or pinned down but for that minimal moment in time before such locations start to slide again” (25). If applied to the case of female surfers, identity is constantly evolving alongside the sea. Constantly moving and changing, this transiency offers female surfers to explore themselves more fully. Susan Griffin explains how water and woman

<footnote n="66">⁶⁶ Comer, Krista. *Surfer Girls in the New World Order*. Duke UP, Durham, 2010, 78.</footnote>
each influence one another: “When the water approaches me, the shape of the wave is changed. And when the tide ebbs, you will see, I, too, have changed.”<fnref n="67" /> Griffin then illustrates how, for Britton, the sea indicates how her *becoming* is an on-going process through which she discovers another part of herself and of the sea every time she engages with it. When she starts big wave surfing, Britton discloses how

> I surrendered to my sea dragon. It is these moments of becoming and belonging for both the wave and the surfer that could be understood as a form of deep connection to place, the meaning of which is captured beautifully by the Gaelic word dúchas: a place that you understand, a place that you know intimately and that knows you in return. (Saltwater 72)

While it is the waves that travel thousands of miles, it is the travelling to the shore, and the stepping into water, that defines Britton’s narrative as a journey of self-realization. Here she is deeply at one with herself and with the wave. It is also interesting to see how this moment is seen as empowering for her, and how for her this is intrinsically tied to the surf break. This is also due to the fact that she extends her own inner self to the wave she engages with and “the line between landscape and self does not exist; instead, the two blend and blur into one, each dependent on the other and working toward a complete sense of self.”<fnref n="68" /> The wave that she surfs becomes a wave through her, and she in turn becomes a surfer through the wave. It is through this interaction that Britton finds her own true self.

When Liz Clark begins her journey in 2006, it is with doubt that she sets sail from San Diego. In those first moments, the sea no longer is the familiar presence she has always felt at ease with, but becomes uncertain and even threatening. She contrasts this with her home town, whose lights she can still distinguish in the distance: “To the north: light, familiarity, comfort, safety, family. To the south: dark, unknown, doubt” (Swell 23). It could leave us to believe that Clark is separating herself from the sea. As Linda Vance notes, “[a] man-against-nature theme resonates throughout the dominant white culture of this country.”<fnref n="69" /> But here, Clark is not against nature, she is with it, and thus engages in a more dialogic relationship with the sea. Clark is plagued by self-doubt, which is revealed by the sea’s obscurity who seems to awaken and unveil her own inner thoughts. Clark’s journey in those first moments is uncertain, as is the shape of the sea. However, while she does still question herself and perceive the sea as

<footnote n="67">⁶⁷ Griffin, Susan. *Woman and Nature*. Op. cit., 161.</footnote>

<footnote n="68">⁶⁸ Hulme Hill, Sarah. “The Landscape of Western Women’s Memoir: Healing through Memoir Writing.” *The Landscape of Western Women’s Memoir: Healing through Memoir Writing*. Utah State University, UT, 2006. ProQuest, ezproxy.univ-paris3.fr/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/landscape-western-womens-memoir-healing-through/docview/304987396/se-2, 6.</footnote>

<footnote n="69">⁶⁹ Vance, Linda. “Ecofeminism.” *Op. cit.*, 119.</footnote>
threatening, it is still only a reflection of her own inner turmoil. It confronts Clark to herself, and thereby reveals the doubts she feels about her journey and her own capacities to captain a sailboat. They are both responding to each other. As Patrick D. Murphy notes:

> Just as the other participates in the formation of the self, so too does the self as individual-in-the-world participate in the formation of the other in its various manifestations. And, just as the self enters into language and the use of *parole*, so too does the other enter into language and have the potential, as does any entity, to become a 'speaking subject.' (Literature 9)

In this short passage at the beginning of her book, while voicing her own inner thoughts through the sea, Clark gives the sea agency by entering into a dialogue with it. And it answers her: "A sea lion abruptly breaks the sea surface below my feet. He twirls and loops just under the water, spinning glittery ribbons of neon phosphorescence through the dark sea. He swoops and frolics carefree and confident. My shoulders relax a bit" (Swell 24). In answer to her doubts, the sea sends a messenger in the shape of a sea lion and plankton. The sea lion carries a message of hope: by playing in the wake of *Swell*, it disturbs the plankton which emit bioluminescence. The sea lion's playful attitude reminds Clark to trust the sea and herself. It is also interesting to note how the plankton here reveal a natural light in contrast to the artificial ones of San Diego, hinting at Clark's journey ahead as being one to her true self, and that she has the capacities within herself to succeed. Griffin points out, that it is when women choose to venture out into that part of themselves that they fear, that resides the possibility of transformation:

> *Where we go into darkness. Where we embrace darkness. Where we lie close to darkness, breathe when darkness breathes and find darkness inside ourselves. The room of the darkness of women. Where we are not afraid. Where joy is under the surface. Where we laugh. Where laughter fills us utterly when we see what we thought was horrible.*<sup>70</sup>

Clark's encounter with the sea leads her to understand that despite her doubts, she is capable of captaining a journey of her own. Thus, in the first few lines of her journey, the sea becomes a speaking subject in its own right, and both evolve alongside one another throughout her journey. As Karen Warren reminds us, "*what* a thing (person, community, population, species, animal, river) is partly is a function of *where* it is,"<sup>71</sup> and here the sea gave Clark the courage she needed to go on. This links back to the idea of transiency, as Clark's sense of self is already changing at the beginning of her narrative from *I can't*, to *I can*, due to the sea, who in turn becomes playful instead of threatening. By understanding and engaging with each other, both Clark and

<footnote n="70"><sup>70</sup> Griffin, Susan. *Woman and Nature*. Op. cit., 157.</footnote>

<footnote n="71"><sup>71</sup> Warren, Karen. *Ecofeminist Philosophy*. Op. cit., 153.</footnote>
the sea begin their own process of becoming. This leads them on a journey of learning,
understanding, and to a certain extent, *becoming* one another. Clark ends her narrative with the
understanding that the sea is her home: “I load her [Amelia] into the canoe and paddle us home
through the morphing reflections on the dark, glassy sea. Once we’re aboard, I strip down to
bare skin, then leap into my sublime, starlit bathtub and float on my back, dreaming” (*Swell
310*). In contrast to her first moments alone at sea, here Clark no longer sees the sea as
threatening in its darkness, but as beautiful and a place of dreaming. By baring herself to the
sea, she accepts herself fully, trusting the sea and herself. There no longer is a distinction
between home (that used to be San Diego) and sea, as they have both merged into one. In that
way, there are no psychological barriers between herself and the sea.

It is the sea's own impermanence that allows them to understand that nothing is set in
stone. There is no fixed destination, no fixed path, and from thereon they split from the
traditional understanding of what an initiatory quest is. This can also be understood as a split
from the alienating and rationalistic gaze of Western thought (Literature 32). Instead, by going
back to the original meaning of the word *quest* and *nalu*, they make it a living genre that, based
on transiency, consists of a circular motion, a perpetual going to the sea which builds their
identity. Furthermore, it indicates that it does not just take one journey to reach self-realization,
but that it is an on-going process. Clark and Britton show how we, as humans, are constantly
being influenced by the environment which we choose to engage with, thereby linking back to
Warren's idea that we *are* the place we choose to engage with.<fnref n="72" /> When Clark and Britton go
out to sea, underlying their quest for waves, is a desire to seek themselves. Encountering the
sea leads them to discover themselves psychologically and physically. However, one encounter
does not lead to self-realization, it is the continual process of going back to the sea, or navigating
it, that helps them in turn learn more about themselves. It is a process that takes time. For Clark,
it took 12 years, while for Britton it is a way of living. In this way, the sea is constantly shaping
and influencing their identities, leading them to grow and evolve in parallel to it. Their
narratives also show how they set themselves apart from the accepted initiatory quest traditions
that would see a domination of the landscape. Instead, by taking an ecofeminist standpoint, the
reading of their works show how they adopt a dialogical approach to their interactions with the
moving environment: by treating the sea and its non-human inhabitants as equal, they give
agency and subjectivity back to them. No longer passive, the sea thus grants them access to an
ecosystem through which they constitute their sense of self: the bioluminescence reveals to

<footnote n="72">⁷² Warren, Karen. *Ecofeminist Philosophy. Op. cit.*, 153.</footnote>
Clark the capacities she holds within, while the moon's influence on the sea helps Britton understand her own body's cycles. Theirs is a *becoming* through the sea. Their self-realization happens through nature, and as such, an ecofeminist initiatory quest would see the narrator engaging on a dialogical level with their moving environment, which would in turn grant them access to a better understanding of their sense of self: an identity that is malleable like the sea.
## 2. Carving a path on the edge: going beyond dualities

The outside world, beyond the home, has traditionally been seen as male. As such, when women traveled, they were made aware of their gender in multiple ways. The incipience of this exclusion of women is the segregation of spaces, where, by quoting Daphne Spain, Susan L. Roberson discloses how “[t]hose spaces ascribed to women were the private and domestic spaces of the home and family. Because ‘spatial segregation is one of the mechanisms by which a group with greater power can maintain its advantage over a group with less power.’”<fnref n="73" /> Although this segregation is not as relevant today, traces of it can still be felt by women travelers. As revealed by Clark and Britton, female surfers also experience traces of segregation. Fashioned for and by men, the dualistic mindset, which can still be seen today in the surfing world, contains their movements, instilling self-doubt and fear. As such, when venturing out on the surface of the sea, female surfers and travelers may face traces of this exclusion, but the changing sea urges them along. Through the sea they navigate, they also understand how the sea, as a traveler, helps move them along and teaches them fluidity.

While not as significant today as it may have been in the 1970s through to the 1990s, the masculinization of the sport can still be seen to impact female surfers in their desire to engage with the surfed wave. Before the subsequent duality that emerged from masculinization was applied to women, it was first applied to waves, which first translated itself with a distance between the surfer and the surfed wave. Despite the fact that the surf culture began in the 1960s with “the desire to be close to nature through surfing rather than to master it,”<fnref n="74" /> the shift that occurred in the 1970s and 1980s focused on a way of surfing that encouraged the silencing of both women and waves. Thus, reminiscent of Merchant and how she disclosed the age-old association between women and nature,<fnref n="75" /> here it can be found in surfing. The separation between surfer and surfed wave can be observed in the way in which waves are described in surfing—as explained by surfer Dave Rastovich:

> Every time someone did a really enjoyable turn, or flying down the line in something complicated or powerful or technical, the language was militant: ‘Oh he just ripped the top off of that one!’ ‘Oh wow,

<footnote n="73">⁷³ Roberson, Susan L. “American Women.” *Op. cit.*, 217.</footnote>

<footnote n="74">⁷⁴ Stedman, Leanne. “From Gidget to Gonad Man.” *Op. cit.*, 81.</footnote>

<footnote n="75">⁷⁵ Merchant, Carolyn. “Introduction.” *Op. cit.*, xix.</footnote>
shredding, ripping, airing, attack, that down the line attack' ... A lot of the language used for surfing is
very aggressive, is quite militant.<fnref n="76" />

Through the development of the modern sport of surfing, especially competitive surfing, a wave
is no longer experienced but dominated. Reminiscent of Roberson, power is exercised over the
wave as the surfer contains their advantage over it, thereby establishing a separation between
surfer and wave. Subsequently, the surfed wave is controlled through an aggressive approach
that tries to contain it. This indicates that aggression is "the principal means through which
surfers earn prestige and respect from their peers."<fnref n="77" /> As Luci Attala remarks in her book *How
Water Makes Us Human: Engagements with the Materiality of Water*, "the activity of damming
and holding water in position has regularly been interpreted as one of humanity actively
demonstrating its control over the environment."<fnref n="78" /> The blue humanities can further reveal how
controlling water is unnatural: even though sea water in surfing is not contained like water is
by a dam, it is still controlled by a surfer's movements through an aggressive style of surfing.
Consequently, this presents the surfed wave as inert and incidental instead of being co-
productive (53): waves are denied their own subjectivity, and become silenced under the
masculinization of the sport. Steve Mentz could further help us understand how the separation
between surfer and wave could be due to the sea holding less importance today imaginatively.<fnref n="79" />
Accordingly, the surfed wave would just be perceived as a surfed wave, whereas the blue
humanities would reveal how the wave is a subject in its own right (997). Easkey Britton
describes the process of separation that occurs with the surfed wave and how it is often seen as
something to be acted upon, dominated, and even conquered: "In surf media, big wave surfing
has typically been portrayed as the hero overcoming the monster, a hyper-masculine portrayal
of a 'dragon-slaying' pursuit" (*Saltwater* 48). By seeing the wave as a monster, this links back
to the conquering and masculine attitude in surfing of dominating a wave, thus establishing a
distance between the surfer and the surfed wave that is turned into a monster of sorts. The latter
demonstrates an aggressive approach to the wave that, in turn, is seen as dangerous. Riding, or
as Britton explains, "slaying" the wave (*Saltwater* 48), makes it break in a certain way that
asserts the surfer's dominance over the sea, which even today can be seen as the "vector of an

<footnote n="76">⁷⁶ Britton, Easkey. "Playful Edge." *Op. cit.*, 7:00.</footnote>

<footnote n="77">⁷⁷ Booth, Douglas. "From Bikinis to Boardshorts: 'Wahines' and the Paradoxes of Surfing Culture." *Journal of Sport History*, vol. 28, no. 1, 2001, pp. 3–22. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43609829, 6.</footnote>

<footnote n="78">⁷⁸ Attala, Luci. *How Water Makes Us Human: Engagements with the Materiality of Water*. Edited by Luci Attala and Louise Steele, U of Wales P, Cardiff, 2019. Materialities in Anthropology and Archaeology, 55.</footnote>

<footnote n="79">⁷⁹ Mentz, Steve. "Blue Critical Studies." *Op. cit.*, 998.</footnote>
ideal masculinity.”<fnref n="80" /> Much in the same way that Britton described surfing as “dragon-slaying,” ecofeminism brings to light this masculinist vision of nature that is either caring and nurturing or that is “seen as a demonic being who must be conquered and subdued.”<fnref n="81" /> The sea is then presented as something that has to be acted upon and subdued. However, when a surfer fails to act upon a wave, to “slay” it, it can also be a source of shame: “Another taboo in surfing is the shame of paddling in from a surf without catching a wave in; it’s almost like a sign of defeat” (Saltwater 82). Accordingly, not catching a wave and understanding the experience as a “defeat” further enhances a dualistic mindset. Due to the shift that happened in the 1970s and 1980s, duality is the defining figure in surfing, where surfer and wave are opposed, one trying to overcome the other. In *Saltwater in the Blood*, Britton shows how the hierarchical division of space is engrained within the sport. This leads to an unhealthy representation of the sport, which could lead to dangerous attitudes in regards to surfing. Seeing the wave as something one has to conquer or dominate, and then inert and incidental, could lead the surfer to engage with a wave that they have not read well. But essentially, it takes away the essence of what surfing is: play, communing, and sharing with the surfed wave.<fnref n="82" /> As such, a dualistic mindset that separates surfer from wave establishes a hierarchical division of space, that can then influence how women approach the breaking wave. As a matter of fact, surfer and writer Lauren Hill explains how “[t]he modern sport of surfing was pioneered primarily by young men and the culture has subsequently given priority to their perspectives, approaches, and accomplishments” (6). Women’s perspectives have been sidelined in the surf culture, and as such, there are only men’s narratives and definitions of surfing to follow and adhere to. Accordingly, women’s movements are influenced by a male vision of the sport and thus struggle to explore the possibilities that their own bodies offer them in the sport. Easkey Britton points out that “[a]s women, since the moment we were born we have been conditioned to move in the world in a certain way; to contract, withdraw and become small, maybe even invisible, in order to stay safe” (Saltwater 203). Britton reveals that how water is treated can then be read in how women in surfing are treated in turn. In this passage of her narrative, Britton demonstrates how women have been made passive like the surfed wave: they are both acted upon, not the originators of movement, and thereby damned like water is. The association of

<footnote n="80">⁸⁰ Schmitt, Anne, and Anaïs Bohuon. “When Women Surf the World’s Biggest Waves: Breaking Gender Barriers.” *Sport in Society*, vol. 25, no. 10, 2021, pp. 1924–1939. *Taylor and Francis Online*, https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2021.189710, 1.</footnote>

<footnote n="81">⁸¹ Kheel, Marti. “From Heroic to Holistic Ethics: The Ecofeminist Challenge.” *Ecofeminism: Women, Animals, Nature*, edited by Greta Gaard, Temple UP, Philadelphia, 1993, pp. 243–271. *Ethics and Action*, 247.</footnote>

<footnote n="82">⁸² Hill, Lauren L. *She Surf. Op. cit.*, 7.</footnote>
women and water in surfing thereby reveals how Merchant's age-old associations have permeated the sea, and created an unhealthy space for both women and waves. Unable to express themselves fully, they are then silenced. In the surf culture, women are influenced by men's vision of the sport, and Britton defines this participation by the use of an anticlimax at the end of this passage; it anticlimaxes with their disappearance and silencing, which reinforces this hierarchical division within the sport of surfing that slowly effaces women and waves from participation. By paralleling women's movements in the sport to those of the tide, women and waves are slowly removing themselves from the surf scene, becoming silent in the process. A similar example can be found in *Swell*, where Liz Clark explains how “[i]t's nice not to be forced to sit deeper than my skills allow or to have to wait for the scrap waves the crowd doesn't want” (183). Much like Britton, Clark has also experienced the gendered segregation of surfing, where women, alongside waves not deemed worthy enough of being surfed, are sidelined. Excluded from the lineup—the place where waves peak and the surfer engages with the moving water—Clark is “forced” to move in ways that are too challenging or not challenging enough: she is sidelined, never at the center of the action. As her position in the lineup is passive and somewhat dangerous, this segregation shows how her experience as a female surfer, points to a devaluation of both women and waves and how the hierarchy of the lineup operates to exclude women from the sport. The lineup Clark is excluded from can then be understood as a “gendered territory ... as surfers seek to lay claim to an experiential territory that has become such a valuable cultural commodity,”<fnref n="83" /> thus reinforcing the hierarchal division of space in the sport.

The dualities present in surfing can be seen to contain female surfers not only in the lineup but also when they travel. In the same way that past female travelers have faced the boundaries of the home—a space to which women have long been assigned—Clark is today reminded of this separation of spheres on a sailing trip. Historically, the home has long been associated with the static. Moreover, there has been a long tradition in literature of women being attributed to the home, the static, and the immobile. This tradition can be seen to go back to *The Odyssey*, where Penelope, at home, waits for Odysseus, who, outside the home, is mobile and experiences the world through his agency.<fnref n="84" /> In this vein, the feminine traditionally belongs to the realm of the private, domestic, and static, while the masculine belongs to that of the outward,

<footnote n="83">⁸³ Ford, Nick and David Brown. "Gendering the Waves: Surfing in the Gender Order and the Gender Order in Surfing." *Surfing and Social Theory: Experience, Embodiment and Narrative of the Dream Glide*. Routledge, London, 2006, pp. 83–109, 109.</footnote>

<footnote n="84">⁸⁴ Canadas, Laure, et al. *Voyages Et Migrations. Op. cit.*, 49.</footnote>
mobile, and public.<fnref n="85" /> While this segregation is no longer relevant today, traces of it can still be felt. In *Swell*, Liz Clark remembers how, during a sailing trip with an acquaintance, Rick, she was made aware of her gender by having her skills as a sailor dismissed: *“He discouraged me from helping sail the boat, preferring I cook or clean. He whittled away at my confidence and I came home convinced that I'd never be able to captain a long voyage on my own”* (Swell 31).

In this passage, Rick installs a division of spheres on the sailboat: the masculine sails and is an agent of movement, while the feminine stays inside to look after the boat. Reminiscent of the boundaries women used to face while traveling, Clark shows how echoes of them can still be felt today. Relegated to the inside of the boat, Clark is subsumed into the domestic sphere. Rick's essentialist view of women, by making Clark cook and clean, makes her passive; she is no longer an active agent in the sailing of the boat, even though her experience may indicate otherwise. Accordingly, she is no longer an agent of movement, as she can be understood as inert and incidental; movement happens to her. Words like “discouraged” and “whittled away” demonstrate this point as she is no longer the subject of the sentence, indicating that Rick becomes the captain grammatically as well as physically. Clark explains in the *Water People Podcast* how the “vulnerabilities” that she faced during her traveling and surfing, were due to her being “different,” her being a woman.<fnref n="86" /> This short passage presents how “dominant structures of space reflect social power relations as well as hegemonic discourses that shape these relations. Such spatial structures or spatialities crucially rest on mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion from both physical locations ... and social spheres” (Ganser 65). In such a manner, Clark’s narrative shows how travel—according to Rick’s vision of sailing as well as the “vulnerabilities” she faced in sailing—belongs to the male sphere: it is exclusively made for and by men. This leads to Clark’s movements being restricted through this separation of spheres, which rests on the dualistic notion of separating the realm of the masculine from that of the feminine. Furthermore, when Clark challenged this notion of separate spheres, her movements were still restricted, which led her to question her own capabilities as a sailor. Similarly, by drawing on Britton’s lived experience as a professional big wave surfer, she explains how she felt contained and pressured to perform, thus held in position in a way. Anne Schmitt and Anaïs Bohuon explain how women in big wave surfing, “[b]ecause of their exceptional performance, ... confirm their legitimacy in big-wave surfing, overturning the

<footnote n="85">⁸⁵ Ganser, Alexandra. *Roads of Her Own*. Op. cit., 17.</footnote>

<footnote n="86">⁸⁶ Clark, Liz. “Reinventing Rites.” *Op. cit.*, 40:07.</footnote>
previously immutable gender segregation in the professional surfing world.”<sup>87</sup> However, despite this claim, Britton also reveals how being the “only woman” can sometimes weigh on her:

> [N]ot being able to let go of the expectations of others, and maybe the expectations I’d placed on myself as a woman in the world of big wave surfing and how I might be judged. I felt too much focus was on the need to somehow perform well and live up to expectations ... Instead of feelings of courage and self-worth, feelings of self-doubt, shame and regret surfaced. (*Saltwater* 81)

Much in the same way that the wave is “slayed,” Britton is contained, and both of their movements can then be understood as being held down. Confronted to the expectations that others have placed upon her as a female big wave surfer, Britton’s movements in the surf are restricted by this fear. This is a fear that she also previously referred to as “[t]he greatest fear I faced out there” (*Saltwater* 75). Interestingly, the pressure for Britton does not come from the wave—big wave surfing is one of the most prestigious and life-risking branches of surfing and requires a psychological and physical commitment to the wave<sup>88</sup>—but from the gaze that is placed upon her as a woman. Georgina Roy explains how in surf culture, “the masculine domination of space instigates moments of fear and anger which function to maintain the alignment of masculinity with surfing through conformity or containment.”<sup>89</sup> She is seen as crossing over into a male-dominated sphere, and as such, she is expected to perform well. In this way, when her own inner judge is too strong, the other’s gaze contains her and her own feelings of self-doubt surface, which can be seen as drowning Britton in this way. Roy also previously explained how “[f]ear shrinks bodies, restricting their mobility, and causes them to take up less space” (45), and effectively, when Britton does question herself as a surfer, she no longer engages with the wave but lets her own feelings, not the wave, “surface.” This can be linked back to how Attala explains that holding water in a certain position is a means of exerting power over it. As Britton’s fear holds her in place, unable to commit herself to a wave, she becomes still like the wave; they are no longer co-productive in a divided lineup. Britton feels the pressure to be a woman more than anything: “*What if I took a terrible wipeout, they’d think ‘girls’ shouldn’t be out there anyway. I was tired and hadn’t slept well, if I messed up I’d bring shame on women who surfed big waves’*” (*Saltwater* 58–59). As Schmitt and Bohuon explain,

<footnote n="87"><sup>87</sup> Schmitt, Anne, and Anaïs Bohuon. “When Women Surf the World’s Biggest Waves: Breaking Gender Barriers.” *Sport in Society*, vol. 25, no. 10, 2021, pp. 1924–1939. *Taylor and Francis Online*, https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2021.189710. Accessed 21 Nov. 2021, 2.</footnote>

<footnote n="88"><sup>88</sup> Schmitt, Anne and Anaïs Bohuon. “When Women Surf.” *Op. cit.*, 1.</footnote>

<footnote n="89"><sup>89</sup> Roy, Georgina. “‘Taking Emotions Seriously:’ Feeling Female and Becoming-surfer through UK Surf Space.” *Emotion, Space and Society*, vol. 12, 2014, pp. 41–48. *Science Direct*, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2013.07.004, 47.</footnote>
as soon as a female big wave surfer wipes out, that is, falls off of her surfboard, her “legitimacy to face these waves is immediately questioned,” thereby indicating the fragility of a female surfer’s status as a surfer: whereas a male surfer who suffers from a wipeout is often heralded as “the press overflows with admiration and hagiographical qualifiers for their feats, including ones resulting in serious injury,” a female surfer may easily fall into the category of “girl,” thus further falling back into the “essentializing discourse against women surfers, evoking their fragility and thus their illegitimacy in confronting these nature forces.”<fnref n="90" /> So not only is pressure put on her to surf well, but she also pressures herself to not let other women down. By claiming herself as a big wave surfer, Britton wants to light the way for other female surfers to try out bigger waves and encourage women to push the boundaries of what they think is possible. Both Liz Clark and Easkey Britton’s narratives demonstrate how it is the male gaze that is seen to contain them: they become restrained both psychologically and physically.

However, the very nature of water is fluid. By establishing the surfer as opposed to the wave, they in turn remove themselves from the sea. Conquering, dividing, and slaying are all attitudes that go against fluidity and what the sea and surfing are. Furthermore, Singer establishes the shore, the place where surfing happens, as a contact zone that thereby enables liminalities to take root.<fnref n="91" /> The latter implies transgressions and dissolving (15), which would reduce these dualities to nil. The sea is not a place of duality but of fluidity. As Attala remarks, language illustrates this point perfectly: the word “water” is an uncountable noun; we cannot possibly ever divide it or slay it; it is a single substance (18), which is reminiscent of how Dobrin argued that there are not many oceans and seas but only one continuous flowing ocean.<fnref n="92" /> Furthermore, Kate Soper pointed out the impossibility of ever encapsulating the whole meaning of nature.<fnref n="93" /> Because the sea is ever-changing, it resists control and can only be partly known. Trying to control the surfed wave thereby goes against its very nature and points to how these attitudes lack understanding of the watery milieu. However, a more fluid approach to water— a liminal approach that would require the transitoriness of waves—would hint at a more comprehensive approach to surfing. Britton describes her own experience of the sea as undivided, of water igniting movement within her: “When surfing it sometimes feels as if electrical impulses of energy are firing across synapses beneath the skin in response to the waves of energy pulsing through the ocean” (Saltwater 66). Britton’s experience of surfing has

<footnote n="90">⁹⁰ Schmitt, Anne and Anaïs Bohuon. “When Women Surf.” *Op. cit.*, 9, 9, 8.</footnote>

<footnote n="91">⁹¹ Singer, Christoph. “Transformative Shores.” *Op. cit.*, 11.</footnote>

<footnote n="92">⁹² Dobrin, Sidney I. “Unearthing Ecocriticism.” *Op. cit.*, 1.</footnote>

<footnote n="93">⁹³ Soper, Kate. “Introduction.” *Op. cit.*, 1.</footnote>
connected her to the energy of the ocean in its entirety. While she may choose to surf one wave, it is essentially her ability to feel the ocean's energy that moves her along. In this way, the wave is no longer inert but is an agent in Britton's surfing, as both are co-productive: this fluidity between Britton and the sea grants the wave influence over her movements while she in turn gives shape to the sea's surface. Furthermore, approaching the sea with fluidity instead of control, or learning to be fluid like the sea, grants Clark and Britton the opportunity to reconcile the feminine and masculine within the sport and, more importantly, themselves, thereby allowing a fuller expression of water to take place. By understanding the dualistic mindset that is at play in the surfing world, listening to the sea can lead female surfers to transgress this duality and go beyond it. Transgression comes from the Latin verb *transgredi*, a combination of the words “across” and “go,” which indicate a crossing over of a border,<fnref n="94" /> that thus represents water's fluid and traveling quality while also implying the liminal quality of the shore as engendering this possibility to go beyond. By drawing on what Attala describes as “holding water” (55), which can then be extended to the surfed wave, she later explains how water is a traveler, always fluid and evolving, and “any sense of permanence, solidity or stability is a temporal illusion” (26). In this way, the conquering and domineering qualities of a dualistic approach to surfing are an illusion. Furthermore, Rachel Carson reminds us that what makes a wave a wave is movement—the fact that it travels.<fnref n="95" /> In this way, female surfers “go across” by the sea they navigate. Astrida Neimanis in *Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology* explains how water travels and that because of its fluid nature, water is able to “comprise, transform, and dissolve” other bodies of water.<fnref n="96" /> As water influences bodies, it also urges them to move on. In *Swell*, Clark writes of her first experience of a night watch: “*The cold wind pulses across my ears*” (25). In this short passage, it is the wind that is seen pushing her along. In a way, this is reminiscent of how the wind also creates waves. By comparing Clark to a wave created by the wind, she has, from an early age, been urged to move. Furthermore, despite her experience with Rick, her return to the marina provides her with the opportunity to travel and pursue her dreams (*Swell* 32). Through this comparison, it can then be understood that it is the sea's liminal nature that grants Clark the ability to go beyond dualities and her own limits. If water is then understood as a traveler with the ability to make others move again, it

<footnote n="94">⁹⁴ “Transgress, v.” *OED Online*, Oxford UP, March 2023, www.oed.com/view/Entry/204775. Accessed 14 Apr. 2023.</footnote>

<footnote n="95">⁹⁵ Carson, Rachel. *The Sea. Op. cit.*, 114.</footnote>

<footnote n="96">⁹⁶ Neimanis, Astrida. *Bodies of Water: Posthuman Feminist Phenomenology*. Edited by Greg Garrard and Richard Kerridge, Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2019. Environmental Cultures, 23.</footnote>
can then be seen as the originator of movement for both Clark and Britton that leads them to
not only “go across” the duality present in surfing but also go beyond it.

In short, both spaces in travel and surf narratives undergo a division of space. The oppression to which they are subject, pushes them to the sidelines and thus takes away their agency. Seen as transgressing the male domain, they are put under pressure to measure up to this male-dominated world. Thereby, feelings of self-doubt arise, which can at times be seen as crippling. The pressure for women surfers and travelers is internal more than anything: wanting to negotiate their way in a male-dominated sphere and wanting to challenge stereotypes. Furthermore, the waves that both Clark and Britton engage with are also objects of surf culture. Favoring an aggressive approach to the surfed wave that contains it translates as a domination of the sea. But as Attala and Neimanis explain, the very nature of water is fluid. Going against this fluidity would be going against the very nature of water. Furthermore, as waves move across the surface of the sea, they instill movement in Clark and Britton and can be seen as the originators of their own movements. From a young age, Clark has been influenced by the marine elements, which continuously urge her on, and for Britton, the sea teaches her its own fluid nature that connects all parts of the ocean together. Through the traveling sea, they are able to truly evolve alongside it, all while exploring new ways of being and engaging with the sea.
3. Waterwoman water-dancer: relearning the body and listening to the moving self and wave.

The dualities present in surfing have held Clark and Britton down not only psychologically but also physically. While they are able to rediscover themselves with their *becoming* through the sea, the latter will further encourage them to now, free from doubt, go beyond the traditional approach to the surfed wave that would have it silenced. The liminal nature of the sea and its fluidity enable a transcorporeal approach to the surfer's body that sees it as watery. Thus, by fully engaging with their own bodily movement, they are then able to rediscover themselves as waterwomen, creating a new dialogical way of being a surfer and, hence, a traveler.

According to Melody Jue, the liminal quality of the sea offered to the water person enables them to only “temporarily belong to the ocean before physiological conditions of tissue saturation take away their temporary passport.”<fnref n="97" /> Through this approach, the figure of the surfer becomes a temporary visitor, never fully able to grasp the entirety of the sea. Jue calls this “the liminal figure” of the “human trespasser” (64). Understanding the surfing body as liminal would then go against the traditional way of surfing that would focus on the silencing of waves and women. Instead of approaching the wave with the aim of controlling or dominating it, a liminal approach would, I believe, grant them the possibility to open up their perspectives to that of the sea, which is itself liminal. Furthermore, only being able to enter the sea briefly would further point to the sea’s own instability as an ever-changing milieu. Knowing that their watery self is only temporary, would lead them to attune themselves to the sea and listen to the ways in which a chosen wave may want them to move, thereby becoming watery in the process. The latter can further be linked to Stacy Alaimo’s theory of transcorporeality, which she defines as “a new materialist and posthumanist sense of the human as substantially and perpetually interconnected with the flows of substances and the agencies of environments.”<fnref n="98" /> When applied to surfing, this reveals an inclusive approach to the sea that sees bodies (both human and watery) as never autonomous but that influence and become through each other. Drawing on the blue humanities, we can then understand how the connection granted by liminality, or transcorporeality, awards them with the ability to liberate their movements through water. Furthermore, a person’s own

<footnote n="97">⁹⁷ Jue, Melody. *Wild Blue Media: Thinking through Seawater*. Duke UP, Durham, 2020. Elements, 64.</footnote>

<footnote n="98">⁹⁸ Alaimo, Stacy. "States of Suspension: Trans-corporeality at Sea." *Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment*, vol. 19, no. 3, 2012, pp. 476–493. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/44087131, 476.</footnote>
materiality, as being only temporary, would align itself with that of the sea's, thereby bringing
to light the interconnectedness of both bodies of water.

The shore, the place where surfing happens, is a threshold; it is liminal. Marine biologist Rachel Carson defined this ecotone, this meeting place, as “strange and beautiful. . . . For no two successive days is the shore line precisely the same. . . . Always the edge of the sea remains an elusive and indefinable boundary.”<fnref n="99" /> As such, a surfer’s environment is never the same; it is liminal and constantly enacting water’s fluidity; no one can ever grasp its entirety, but only try to know a small part of it for a small amount of time. Accordingly, water’s fluidity can then influence a surfer’s own movements and being, which can then change and evolve alongside the sea, thus enacting its own liminal nature and producing different forms of embodiment. In this way, Clark’s living on the surface of the sea enables her to attune herself to this marine environment’s liminal nature. Understood as a rebirth, constraints are lifted, and Clark is able to rediscover her own body and how it moves, thus seeing the world from a new angle. In *Swell*, we can observe how the sea’s movement is liberatory for Clark: “I’m learning more about what I like, what I want, and how I thrive. I don’t have to explain myself. The days ebb and flow with the rhythms of my body and the environment around me. I move between tasks and basic human needs in a spontaneous, instinctual movement” (132). With the words “ebb and flow” here applied to her bodily senses, Clark compares herself to the tide, thus proving how her sea life has enabled her to become more fluid. However, Clark is also hinting at how her own materiality is watery: tides are created by the moon’s gravitational forces, and as Rachel Carson reveals, “[t]here is no drop of water in the ocean, not even in the deepest parts of the abyss, that does not know and respond to the mysterious forces that create the tide.”<fnref n="100" /> Accordingly, Clark returns to an instinctual way of being and moving, recognizing her own materiality as a body of water and thus responding to the tide. Furthermore, as a body of water, Britton is also affected by the moon and has her own bodily tides. While she may not have been so attuned to them before, it is her proximity to water that has revealed them to her and that has allowed her to reconnect with her bodily rhythms. In this way, her life no longer abides by any strict rules or routine but flows, thus allowing her to also explore herself through this tidal/bodily movement. As she sails across the Pacific, she learns how her body moves and, in the process, rediscovers herself. When women become the originators of their own movement, it leads them to explore themselves both psychologically and physically. Through the creation of this liminal tidal

<footnote n="99">⁹⁹ Carson, Rachel. *The Edge. Op. cit.*, 1.</footnote>

<footnote n="100">¹⁰⁰ Carson, Rachel. *The Sea. Op. cit.*, 145.</footnote>
movement, they discover their own selves in relation to the world around them, and the liminality of their bodies is thus expanded. Furthermore, the use of the word “instinctual” to describe her own movements is revelatory, as it shows how her body moves naturally at sea and that she is no longer forced to move in a certain way. Clark’s father later on reveals how “‘You [Clark] sail this boat like it’s a part of yourself’” (Swell 240). For Clark, there are no more boundaries between her, the boat, and the sea. This links to Alaimo’s transcorporeality, which would see an interconnected flow of bodies: there are no longer any barriers between herself, *Swell*, and the sea. Clark then sets herself apart from surfing’s dualistic mindset, which would see a surfer controlling or dominating the sea; instead, the sea influences her as she influences it, and both become one through their shared materiality and movement of the boat. In her dissertation, Schaefer describes the symbiotic relationship that happens between a woman and her boat:

> My body is affected by my boat space. My physical body changes to the boat's demands. ... I dance with the boat allowing the space to mold my physical body and define its posture. I conform to my space, thus creating a place for myself.<fnref n="101" />

Schaefer’s vision of boat life is then transcorporeal, as a woman’s body influences that of a boat, and vice versa. It essentially allows her the space to “dance”—the freedom to move. It allows her to creatively engage—bodily—with the space around her, with the sea, and with herself that is natural. Nevertheless, Shaefer’s vision of boat life can also bring to mind Donna Haraway’s companion species,<fnref n="102" /> as woman and boat are co-constitutive, whereupon they fully express themselves by creatively dancing on the waves. And in those two passages of *Swell*, we can see how movement and the liminality of her body is expanded to the world around her: to her boat and to the sea. This would highlight the liminality of the body as a voice with which the female surfer could speak with the world around her. Alaimo defines the skin’s liminality as a threshold where connections can be established between someone and the outside world.<fnref n="103" /> In a similar way, surfing allows women to explore themselves through bodily movement and engaging with the environment.<fnref n="104" /> But it is also the sea’s own liminal quality, as an ecotone, that grants it the ability to connect all ocean life together,<fnref n="105" /> and thus woman back to her body.

<footnote n="101">¹⁰¹ Schaefer, Barbara Anne. *Sailing Mid-Life's Seas: The Journeys of Voyaging Women*. 2003. U of Maryland, DPhil thesis. DRUM, drum.lib.umd.edu/handle/1903/263, 25–26.</footnote>

<footnote n="102">¹⁰² Haraway, Donna. “When Species Meet.” *Op. cit.*, 4.</footnote>

<footnote n="103">¹⁰³ Alaimo, Stacy. “‘Skin Dreaming:’ The Bodily Transgression of Fielding Burke, Octavia Butler, and Linda Hogan.” *Ecofeminist Literary Criticism: Theory, Interpretation, Pedagogy*, edited by Greta Gaard and Patrick D. Murphy, U of Illinois P, Urbana, 1998, pp. 123–138. The Environment and the Human Condition, 126.</footnote>

<footnote n="104">¹⁰⁴ Comer, Krista. *Surfer Girls*. *Op. cit.*, 206.</footnote>

<footnote n="105">¹⁰⁵ Carson, Rachel. *The Sea*. *Op. cit.*, 19.</footnote>
As Rachel Carson explains in *The Sea Around Us*, “[w]ith these surface waters, through a series of delicately adjusted, interlocking relationships, the life of all parts of the sea is linked.”<fnref n="106" /> It can then be said that it is the liminal quality of both the sea and the female surfer’s body that frees their movements and connects them to one another. But it is also the sea that reveals their own wateriness. For Britton, it was also the sea that allowed her to attune herself to her own bodily tides. As a competitive surfer during her adolescence, Britton experienced the culture of silence that surrounds menstruation in the sport. For a long time, she saw her period as “contaminating the water” (*Saltwater* 37), as something unnatural that she “had to suppress or conceal ... This was especially so when I was a competitive surfer, as the emphasis was always on performance, the need to be more aggressive and attack the wave” (173). In the surf world, the feminine energies that a woman can bring to the sea are in that way silenced: part of Britton is ignored and suppressed. Accordingly, her movements can be understood to be restricted, as she must ignore her own inner tidal movements. However, as Britton grew, she “began to celebrate menstruation as part of this incredible inner cycle that helps keep me in tune with the ebb and flow of natural cycles and biorhythms all around us – circadian rhythm, tidal and lunar cycles, the seasonal cycle and life cycle” (37). Writing menstruation back into nature and the sea—the place from which it has been taken out of, and then forced into silence—breaks down the boundaries of the surf culture, where it is seen as taboo. Furthermore, it is interesting to note that both Britton and Clark refer to their bodily rhythms as “ebb and flow,” much like the tide’s movements. By drawing this parallel, Britton also reveals that menstruation is a natural life process that has been ignored and silenced. Returning to the sea, and then to herself, attunes her to her bodily tides. The liminal quality of the tide and shore can then be seen as freeing her movements, which become more fluid. Furthermore, Britton reveals how her own tidal movements allow her to connect to other natural cycles, thus revealing her own transcorporeality: Britton’s life is connected to the sea, as the sea is to hers, through the world’s natural cycles.

The liminal quality granted to the surfer by the sea sees the surfer express themselves on the wave face, but Clark and Britton’s narratives also reveal how this can be reversed: how the sea can use their bodies as modes of expression. Astrida Neimanis clarifies this point, explaining that “[j]ust as bodies need water, water needs a body – it needs to take up expression as bodies of water that are specifically situated” (*Bodies* 95). Accordingly, the surfer’s body would just be an extension of the wave they were surfing. However, the history of surfboard

<footnote n="106">¹⁰⁶ Carson, Rachel. *The Sea. Op. cit.*, 19.</footnote>
design reveals a different story. Up until the 1970s, the modern sport of surfing's surfboard
design favored style over power with surfboards adapted for women—Joe Quigg's “girl board”
in the 1950s required less strength to surf,<fnref n="107" /> and the twin-fin, or fish, in the 1970s enabled
women to turn more easily<fnref n="108" />—the shift that occurred in the 1980s heralded the arrival of the
shortboard, or “the ‘thruster,’ which privileges power over aesthetics and enjoyment (and
masculinises the surfing experience even through its name!), now has a virtual monopoly
among younger surfers” (82). The shortboard was made for one specific body type: young
athletic men (82). Women, as well as many others, have then been excluded from the surf scene,
their movements restricted. Surfboard design can thereby be understood to not only contain
women's movements but also that of the wave, where there no longer remains any bodily
knowledge of the wave; it, in turn, is molded by the shortboard. A lack of bodily knowledge, or
more importantly, trust, can greatly impact a surfer's performance (Saltwater 42); it prevents
the surfer and the wave from communicating. Freesurfer Leah Dawson explains how women's
surfing differs from that of men. According to Dawson, female surfers' movement comes from
the hips, and when female surfers tuck their hips in, it enables them to “engage our core; it
elongates our stance, and then we are able to see our torso more. We are able to see more, like
a ballet dancer. The extension of her arms is not rigid; it is almost fluid. ... Now just standing
there is cool again. Doing nothing and appreciating the wave is awesome!”<fnref n="109" /> In Saltwater in
the Blood, by describing surfing as “water-dancing” (70), Britton enacts a wave’s fluidity. In
this vein, when Easkey Britton goes surfing on a wooden surfboard, she rediscovers her own
body and how it moves in response to the wave, and thus how the wave in turn takes up
expression through her:

The connection with the wave felt immediately different – the feel of wood on water, you can sense it. ...
It was this kind of creativity I'd craved when stuck in the conformity of competitive surfing and it felt
good to experiment again and realize how little I knew, and how much there was to learn. The board did
not allow me to be stuck in my head – it required a more bodily way of knowing and feeling the wave,
beginning to loosen up my body. (226–227)

This passage of *Saltwater in the Blood* shows how, through the shortboard (especially in
competitive surfing), Britton developed a dualistic mindset, separating herself from her body
and the wave. The masculine “power” surfing granted by shortboards contained Britton,

<footnote n="107">¹⁰⁷ Comer, Krista. *Surfer Girls*. Op. cit., 48.</footnote>

<footnote n="108">¹⁰⁸ Stedman, Leanne. "From Gidget to Gonad Man." *Op. cit.*, 82.</footnote>

<footnote n="109">¹⁰⁹ Dawson, Leah. “Leah Dawson: Discovering Femininity.” Interview by Lauren L. Hill. *Water People Podcast*, Patagonia, Sunbutter Skincare, Sanuk, Garry McNeill Concepts, 15 Aug. 2019, waterpeoplepodcast.com/episodes/. Accessed 29 Nov. 2021, 29:30.</footnote>
oppressing both her and the surfed wave. However, by switching boards and opting for one that is from a natural material and not a man-made one (like traditional fiberglass or epoxy surfboards), it opens up her movements. She gains a new sense of mobility where there are no divisions between herself, her body, and the surfed wave; she takes on a dialogical approach to the wave. Patrick D. Murphy argues for the idea of an ecofeminist dialogics that would see that “[j]ust as the other participates in the formation of the self, so too does the self as individual-in-the-world participate in the formation of the other in its various manifestations” (Literature 9). Murphy’s dialogics reveal the fluidity granted by a different approach to surfing, highlighting the watery way in which a body moves when attuned to its environment. The wooden surfboard allows her to explore her body and how it responds to the wave, which in turn liberates her movements, leading her to be more engaged in the moment. Furthermore, trust in her body allows her to enter into a dynamic dialogue with the surfed wave that leads them both to creatively move, or water-dance. Additionally, Easkey Britton reveals how water also takes up expression within her: “I like to think of surfing as more like water-dancing, and it’s in this movement that I find stillness. The experience of wave riding is this suspended moment; it is a wordless, improvised dance between my body and the wave within the fluid, breathing ocean that I inhabit” (Saltwater 70). As dancing is a rhythmical movement between two bodies, water-dancing can then be understood as a creative expression of both bodies of water. However, the instinctual nature of water-dancing also reveals the natural movement and exchange that take place between Britton and the sea and how they each become through one another. Water-dancing also requires Murphy’s ecofeminist dialogics. A dialogical approach then demands an exchange between Britton and her body, but also between her and the surfed wave. Britton demonstrates how the surfing woman can be at one with her body while in the sea. She suggests that they listen to themselves so as to rewrite their version of surfing in a way that is true to their mind and body. In this way, the dancing between woman and wave can be seen as instinctual and natural, which can then lead us to see both of them as an ecotone. As a place of meeting between two ecosystems, the threshold of skin/water grants them access to explore themselves more naturally, and in that, they find a connection to each other. Britton welcomes the surfed wave into her life, as does the surfed wave into hers. Through their espousing of each other, their movements are liberated, as it expands the bodily sensations of the surfing woman to that of the wave. The world Britton is in *breathes* and is *fluid*, much like her own bodily response to the wave: dancing. Britton re-invents herself and the sport of surfing, offering women in the sport the possibility to move differently. In this way, the subjectivity of the surfed wave is revealed through her surfing. As the surfer and writer Lauren
Hill explains, “[a]s we work to catch up—not to men’s surfing—but to what our own minds, hearts, and bodies are capable of and long for in the water, we are witnessing the depth and diversity of a truly global women’s surf culture.”<fnref n="110" /> Accordingly, as water takes expression through their bodies, it reveals the fluidity of their own narratives. In *Swell*, Clark recognizes the surfed wave as an agent:

> I love to turn around and watch the waves breaking behind me. The pitch and curves of the lips are hypnotizing. Upon collision with the sea below, the wave explodes into bubbling foam. The turquoise sea rushes and blurs under my feet as I speed backward along the wave faces. (183)

Like Dawson suggests, Clark is just standing still and appreciating the wave. By turning around and watching the wave break instead of facing the shoulder of the wave, Clark makes the surfed wave take center stage, but she also gives it a voice. Her witnessing the wave grants it agency; it becomes the subject of the sentence and is thus the agent of its own unfurling. In this way, the wave’s subjectivity is revealed as Clark engages with it. In this passage, Clark reveals surfing as a relational activity that then enables water to take up expression through her narrative. As Attala explains, “water thinks (*with*) us, and that process is not one using the other, or that it is a one-way process, but in keeping with inherent molecular behaviours, asserts that being is a cyclic, relational activity” (58). As a body of water, Clark bears witness to another, and her relational approach to the wave that grants it agency and subjectivity, then sees her narrative take on a watery and fluid nature. Both Clark and Britton thus highlight how their own liminal nature allows the sea to express itself through their surfing. In this way, movement through the sea comes naturally and is a liberatory source of creativity. Their narratives would then suggest a liminal and dialogical approach to the sea that would grant both an attunement to our own bodies and to the sea. That through liminality we become bodies of water, fluid.

Surfing is a way to creatively explore the sea and oneself. However, closeness to the sea reveals Clark and Britton’s bodies as watery. Through this proximity, they become bodies of water and are thus able to extend their senses to the surfed wave. Accordingly, surfing and living with the sea see their embodiment become more natural: cyclical, tidal, and dialogical. Much like the wave that keeps moving, movement is key to Liz Clark and Easkey Britton’s liberation. As Rachel Carson says, “[h]ow long it will live, how far it will travel, to what manner of end it will come are all determined, in large measure, by the conditions it meets in its progression across the face of the sea. For the one essential quality of a wave is that it moves”

<footnote n="110">¹¹⁰ Hill, Lauren L. *She Surf. Op. cit.*, 6.</footnote>
(The Sea 114). By entering into a dialogue with the sea, the surfed wave, tide, and ocean, permeate their sense of self, granting their bodies a watery quality. In response to this exchange, they create their own way of moving, one that grants their bodies and the surfed wave agency. It is essentially through the liminality of their skin and that of the sea that they develop bodily trust. From thereon, they separate themselves from what surfing is said to be, and explore the ways in which their bodies and the wave actually want to interact. It is in this symbiotic relationship that creativity is found. Movement is key, and as Patrick Murphy says about ecofeminist dialogics, they provide "a place and method by which to step and dance, but not to stand" (Literature 17).
## II. The intimate seascape: writing the home and woman

The sea in women's shore narratives holds great importance: it does not efface itself into the background, but as Steve Mentz argues, it becomes a subject in their narratives.<fnref n="111" /> Although a human way of thinking is bound by a terrestrial perspective,<fnref n="112" /> I believe that having the sea as a subject in their narratives allows a partial dissolution of a land-based way of thinking. True to the shore's very nature as an ecotone then, the fluid nature of the sea allows both the sea and Liz Clark and Easkey Britton to create new dynamic understandings of the sea and femininity. By taking on different shapes and roles in their lives that do not adhere to the limiting view of patriarchy, they create new centers for femininity and the sea. Thereby, drawing upon the blue humanities, it is worth noting that the watery bond with the sea that both Clark and Britton write of in their narratives is loving as it is based on an intimate form of reciprocity and care that reveals the sea as fluid; it is not only written as relational but also becomes an agent in their narratives, thereby hinting at the ecofeminist potential of their texts as illustrating the interconnectedness one can witness when going to the shore. The sea grows into a nurturing home, which then allows their narratives to transcend the bounds of traditional travel writing: the home is not static but takes on a cyclical quality that is deeply entwined with their sense of self and their environment, thereby reminiscent of the ecology movement's desire to move in cyclical rather than linear ways.<fnref n="113" /> Nevertheless, the sea also takes on feminine traits that, instead of reinforcing harmful associations such as Bachelard's symbolic water as feminine when it is gentle and pure,<fnref n="114" /> challenges them and aims to restore their bond to the sea that is free from any influence. Subsequently, the bond that they share with the sea becomes intimate, as what emerges from their exchange with that specific ecotone is one that favors a dynamic dialogue and that nurtures their being, as the very quality of an ecotone enables connectedness through its in-between nature that brings two ecosystems together.

<footnote n="111">¹¹¹ Mentz, Steve. "Blue Critical Studies." *Op. cit.*, 997.</footnote>

<footnote n="112">¹¹² Dobrin, Sidney I. "Unearthing Ecocriticism." *Op. cit.*, 2-3.</footnote>

<footnote n="113">¹¹³ Merchant, Carolyn. "Introduction." *Op. cit.*, xxi.</footnote>

<footnote n="114">¹¹⁴ Bachelard, Gaston. "The Supremacy." *Op. cit.*, 151.</footnote>
4. Homing: writing the seascape as home

To figure ourselves as separate from the sea, or more essentially, water, would be wholly
false. While we may no longer live in an aquatic milieu as our ancestors may have, we are still
watery. A point that both Astrida Neimanis and the marine biologist Rachel Carson draw upon
is that even though the animals that went ashore 3.9 billion years ago relinquished their watery
homes,<fnref n="115" /> they still carried a piece of the sea in them: “When they went ashore the animals that
took up a land life carried with them a part of the sea in their bodies, a heritage which they
passed on to their children and which even today links each land animal with its origin in the
ancient sea.”<fnref n="116" /> Subsequently, the part of the sea that is still in our bodies cannot be separated
“from our own incontestable materiality” (Neimanis, *Bodies* 21). Furthermore, ecocriticism
points to the ways in which materiality may give rise to new understandings of the world around
us.<fnref n="117" /> Accordingly, our own materiality, as Neimanis argues, is revelatory of our environment.
Returning to the sea, writing it as home, is also a way of remembering and recognizing the
materiality of our watery heritage and of understanding how water sustains our lives, thereby
posing a reconciliation between our materiality as water and the sea. However, Sidney I. Dobrin
argues that even though “ocean permeates many ways of living, we inhabit ocean
adjacently.”<fnref n="118" /> That is, we cannot enter the sea permanently, but are always living on its edge:
we can live on the shore or on the surface of the sea in a boat, but we can never permanently
reside within the sea. Despite Dobrin’s point, the return to and remembering of the sea can be
linked to Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ definition of *homing* in her 1989 publication of *Women Who
Run with The Wolves*. According to Estés, homing “is the instinct to return, to go to the place
we remember. It is the ability to find, whether in dark or in daylight, one’s home place. ...
Home is where a thought or feeling can be sustained.”<fnref n="119" /> Consequently, Estés’ definition of
“home” highlights the latter as a place that goes beyond the physical as it is one that stems from
deep within, which in this way is reminiscent of the sea water that we carry within ourselves.
From thereon, the home as a physical place is also understood to be deeply entwined with a
person’s sense of self; the home place buoys, as it is where thoughts and feelings are nurtured.
In this way, *homing* is a process of returning and finding the home place, both physically and

<footnote n="115">¹¹⁵ Neimanis, Astrida. *Bodies. Op. cit.*, 21.</footnote>

<footnote n="116">¹¹⁶ Carson, Rachel. *The Sea. Op. cit.*, 13.</footnote>

<footnote n="117">¹¹⁷ Tebokkel, Nathan. “Oryx and Crake.” *Op. cit.*</footnote>

<footnote n="118">¹¹⁸ Dobrin, Sidney I. “Unearthing Ecocriticism.” *Op. cit.*, 58.</footnote>

<footnote n="119">¹¹⁹ Estés, Clarissa Pinkola. “Homing: Returning to Oneself.” *Women Who Run With the Wolves: Contacting the Power of the Wild Woman*. Rider Books, London, 1993, pp. 256–297, 284.</footnote>
mentally. When applying Estés' definition of *homing* to the sea, the word "instinct" is
revelatory. As an “[i]nnate propensity in organized beings” that manifests itself “in acts which
appear to be rational, but are performed without conscious design or intentional adaptation of
means to ends,”<fnref n="120" /> the instinctual return to the sea can be understood as what Carson describes
as being the “unconscious recognition of his lineage” (*The Sea* 14). In such a manner,
remembering the watery lineage that we all carry deep within ourselves can be understood as a
sense of *homing*, as the sea within us resurfaces. Liz Clark and Easkey Britton’s narratives
demonstrate how, through the process of *homing*, the sea becomes a place that sustains them.
Due to the care that they hold for their home place, the sea weaves itself into their narratives
and reveals itself as home.

The space of the home in travel literature reveals two main trends: the home as the point of departure and arrival, or the home as made and created during the journey. Susan L. Roberson argues that “[m]aking a home out of the wild or the foreign seems to be an occupation with women.”<fnref n="121" /> Although this applied to female travelers in the 19th century, Roberson remarks how this could still be noticed in 20th century women’s travel narratives (219). In regards to Clark and Britton’s works, this practice could then be extended into the 21st century. Furthermore, it is interesting to see how Roberson uses the word “make” instead of “build.” “Build” insinuates the bringing of foreign elements into nature, whereas “make” suggests that the home is created and assembled from what is at hand. In this way, the home, as depicted by Roberson and seen in Clark and Britton’s narratives, is fashioned out of the traveler’s movement through the world. Unlike Roberson, Carl Thompson, in *Travel Writing*, discloses how the traditional conception of the home space in travel narratives disassociates it from the journey undertaken. With regards to this traditional view, “the narrator undergoes important, possibly life-changing experiences before returning home.”<fnref n="122" /> Thompson thus reveals how the home in travel narratives is a fixed place that does not participate, witness, or assist in the journey undertaken. The immovability of the home place further denies it agency in the shaping of the narrative as it is not an active participant in the journey and fashioning of self. Thompson’s explanation can then bring to light how travel narratives adhere to the home-away-home structure that Debbie Lisle defines as linear: the home is static, thus becoming a departure point and an arrival point.<fnref n="123" /> This structure

<footnote n="120">¹²⁰ “Instinct, n.” *OED Online*, Oxford UP, March 2023, www.oed.com/view/Entry/97085. Accessed 14 Apr. 2023.</footnote>

<footnote n="121">¹²¹ Roberson, Susan L. “American Women.” *Op. cit.*, 218–19</footnote>

<footnote n="122">¹²² Thompson, Carl. *Travel Writing*. *Op. cit.*, 16.</footnote>

<footnote n="123">¹²³ Lisle, Debbie. “Between Fact and Fiction: The Generic Boundaries of Travel Writing.” *The Global Politics of Contemporary Travel Writing*. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006. 27–67, 37.</footnote>
of the travel narrative in turn creates a duality between the home space and the journeyed space, which is reminiscent of the ways in which the feminine is traditionally ascribed to the home while the masculine to that of the traveled and explored (Ganser 17). The home-away-home structure that informs traditional travel narratives would thus reinforce a duality between the home space and the journeyed space, and indirectly, between the feminine and the masculine. However, as previously indicated by Roberson, women make a home out of the journeyed space, thus challenging the traditional travel narrative's structure. Alexandra Ganser, in her three modes of contemporary travel writing, argues that the quester, nomad, and picara all have a different vision of the home. In accordance with the traditional home-away-home structure, the quester searches for a home as a final destination; the picara, on the other hand, rejects the idea of a home altogether; the nomad, though, perceives the journeyed space as the home (35). Subsequently, the nomad breaks down the dualities created by the home-away-home narrative structure as they inhabit “a permanently transient space and dismantling the duality of home and away, private and public” (35). Transiency explores how someone’s identity is a constant embodied *becoming* that goes hand in hand with their environment (25), thereby pointing to how nomadism would then reveal the home as essentially fluid: constantly changing and evolving alongside the journeyed space, or in another sense, becoming the journeyed space. The home space would no longer be linear but cyclical, thereby making them more in tune with the world around them and with themselves. Furthermore, the transiency present in the nomadic home space would not only foster the fluidity of space but also of mindset, thus reminiscent of Estés’ *homing*, which sees the home space nurture creativity and feelings. The nomad’s understanding of home in movement would then be in harmony with water’s essence as fluid. Nomadism would then be a way of remembering our watery lineage materially—a *homing* that is fluid. I contend that, from Estés’ definition of homing, and by drawing upon how Ganser explains the nomad as creating a home on the road, the sea in Liz Clark’s *Swell* and Easkey Britton’s *Saltwater in the Blood* is at the same time the home space and the place of *homing*. When amalgamated and applied to these readings, nomadism and *homing* reveal the fluidity of the sea as a home that sustains and nurtures.

However, water instigates movement in the traditional home. As Luci Attala reveals in her book *How Water Makes Us Human*, we draw water into our homes, “coaxing it across the landscape through a maze of pathways.”<fnref n="124" /> Water comes to us. In a similar way to how water originated life, water, in this often overlooked and simple way, still sustains us, thereby

<footnote n="124">¹²⁴ Attala, Luci. *How Water Makes Us Human*. Op. cit., 67.</footnote>
suggesting that water initiates movement in the home and that it is simply still a part of our
homes and is constantly permeating our daily lives. Despite water being mobile, it is still not
written as home. On women's nature writing, Susan A. C. Rosen reveals how "a place cannot
express itself until it inspires someone to know the place intimately, to care about the place as
though it is home, and then write that place into existence."<fnref n="125" /> Rosen adds how care is extended
to the place one calls home. Subsequently, water only becomes a home, a refuge, when it is
cared for. Clark and Britton's narratives demonstrate how the tendency of water being drawn
into the home space is reversed: through the care they hold for it, Clark and Britton go to the
water's edge and write it as home. The sea as a home would then be in motion, constantly
changing and renewing itself. The sea as home could then be a nomad: always in movement
and reinventing itself, home water would then be the ideal nomad home space as it emulates
transiency. The care of the home space can be seen in Liz Clark's narrative when she writes,
"[t]he sea air is heavy and rich as I fill my lungs and sway back and forth in my forty-foot
rocking chair, looking out at my vast offshore backyard" (Swell 145). This passage of Swell
presents Clark, through the use of a metaphor, recognizing the sea as her home. Here, her boat
is transformed into a rocking chair and the sea into her backyard. This metaphor then gives rise
to an understanding of the sea as a source of comfort, as a home, essentially. A rocking chair is
a piece of furniture that, through its rocking motion, soothes and appeases the person in it.
Barbara Schaefer indicates, in her dissertation entitled *Sailing Mid-Life's Seas: The Journeys of
Voyaging Women*, that "[t]he play of waves, the to and fro movement, being (Being) rocked like
a baby in a cradle are life giving energies on a ship."<fnref n="126" /> Without explicitly stating it, Schaefer's
boat is also a rocking chair whose movement is set in motion by swells. However, Schaefer
further reveals how this to-and-fro movement can be life giving and sustaining. From here on,
the boat space that is rocked by the rhythms of the sea can be seen to nurture, sustain, and
comfort Clark. By then drawing on Estés' process of *homing*, this passage of *Swell* reveals how
the very same process is occurring here. Both Schaefer and Estés' accounts point out how a
place, specifically the sea, fosters physically as well as mentally through the seascape's lulling
to and fro motion. Moreover, this writing of the sea as a home links back to Ganser's definition
of nomadism, where the sea is both the journeyed space and the home space, thus breaking
down the home-away-home structure of traditional travel narratives. Thanks to this rejection,
the home water that Clark presents is found in the fluid motion of the waves; it is transient. The

<footnote n="125">¹²⁵ Rosen, Susan A. C. “Littoral Women Writing from the Margins.” *Women Writing Nature: A Feminist View*, edited by Barbara J. Cook, Lexington, Lanham, 2008, pp. 21–31, 30.</footnote>

<footnote n="126">¹²⁶ Schaefer, Barbara Anne. *Sailing Mid-Life's Seas. Op. cit.*, 38.</footnote>
sea's fluidity can then be seen to permeate and move through Clark as the sea air "fill[s] my lungs" (Swell 145). Karin Amimoto Ingersoll, in her publication *Waves of Knowing: A Seascape Epistemology*, points out how "[t]he seascape moves beyond its own body to sit in our human places just as we extend our bodies to sit in it."<fnref n="127" /> As Clark extends herself out to the sea by navigating it but also by simply sitting atop it, so too does the sea in turn reach out and fill her senses as she breathes it in, moving her along in the process. In *Saltwater in the Blood*, Easkey Britton, in a similar way that depicts the sea as a source of comfort, writes of it as holding her:

'The ocean holds me.'

...

Where do I go when my mind is a tangle of emotions and incessant thoughts? The water. It empties my mind; my thoughts become formless, shapeless, floating beyond my body, and are carried away by the current or dashed apart by a plunging wave as it crashes onto the sand, dissolving into the millions of mineral particles.

(182)

In her chapter entitled “Water Holds,” Britton discloses how the sea holds her. In this passage, she demonstrates how it holds her both physically and mentally. Through the use of an anthypophora, Britton answers her own question in an almost instinctual way, thus demonstrating how the sea as a home is her “instinct to return.”<fnref n="128" /> Furthermore, her use of an anthypophora also proves that she already knows the answer to her question. Subsequently, the sea instigates Britton’s *homing*, whereupon she returns to the sea to feel sustained both physically and mentally. Moreover, it is important to note that the words that Britton uses to describe her thoughts are “tangle,” which indicates a mixing of materials, such as a tangle of ropes, and “incessant,” which generates the idea of this tangle of thoughts as being never-ending. The word “tangle” is usually used to describe a solid material that is knotted and thus not fluid and flowing. However, by writing “[t]he water” as an answer to her question, Britton reveals through this simple structure that water’s flowing properties immediately untangle her thoughts. The water is her waypoint; it is her point of centrality, where she is sustained, and what holds her afloat. Through this use of an article and noun, Britton lets the sea within her surface and draw her to it. She then goes on to explain why she does go to the sea through a rhythmic flow of words. Interestingly enough, the words she uses to describe her thoughts when immersed can all be applied to water: water can be “formless,” “shapeless,” “floating,” “carried away,” “dashed apart,” and “dissolving.” Opposed to “tangle,” the sea grants Britton fluidity in

<footnote n="127">¹²⁷ Ingersoll, Karin Amimoto. *Waves of Knowing: A Seascape Epistemology*. Duke UP, Durham, 2016, 77.</footnote>

<footnote n="128">¹²⁸ Estés, Clarissa Pinkola. “Homing.” *Op. cit.*, 248.</footnote>
her mind and reveals her own materiality as essentially watery. As these words can both be
ascribed to Britton and the sea, her writing presents the sea as giving her fluidity but also
describes her as merging with her watery environment. Moreover, Britton also writes that the
sea is always reinventing itself, transitioning between different states: liquid, solid, and vapor.
Subsequently, the physicality of the sea is then transferred to the immateriality of the mind,
further proving Estés' point that *homing* is a process that takes place on two planes: the body
and the mind. In this case, the body is that of the sea and the mind that of Britton, thus presenting
both as influencing one another, which is also reminiscent of how Ganser argues that place
influences the traveling person. As water permeates the traditional home, Clark and Britton
reverse this tendency by finding the movement and fluidity of the sea as a home. In turn, the
*homing* that takes place between woman and sea, points to the transiency of place and traveler.

In 1951, Rachel Carson published *The Sea Around Us*, and there she begins her book with the following sentence: “Beginnings are apt to be shadowy, and so it is with the beginning of that great mother of life, the sea” (3). The sea’s early days are shadowed because, as Carson later on explains, uncertainty surrounds their origin, but also because there is reason to believe that centuries of rain gave rise to the seas (7). The story of the sea then starts in darkness. When reading *Saltwater in the Blood*, we can see how Britton’s own beginnings were shadowy:

> “Born on a new moon,
> in the darkness
> where beginnings take root” (5).

Much like the sea, Britton's first moments in life are in darkness. Throughout her narrative, Britton weaves in poems that ultimately reveal her journey of discovery, which lays in parallel to that of the sea. The sea's beginnings are shadowy, and so are hers. In this way, she writes about her life in the sea, and through this, the story of the sea can be read in turn. As previously explained, “a place cannot express itself until it inspires someone to know the place intimately, ... and then write that place into existence.”<fnref n="129" /> Through her poems, Britton extends care towards the sea, which essentially inspires her to delve deeper into her and the sea’s shadowy origins. Furthermore, Jonathan Bate explains how verse-making is the most direct path to the earthly home place, as meter is like a quick, persistent heartbeat that parallels that of the earth.<fnref n="130" /> Accordingly, the cyclical nature of poetry, and here of Britton’s poems, would lead her to her

<footnote n="129">¹²⁹ Rosen, Susan A. C. “Littoral Women.” *Op. cit.*, 30.</footnote>

<footnote n="130">¹³⁰ Bate, Jonathan. *The Song of the Earth*. *Op. cit.*, 76.</footnote>
watery home, which defies the traditional linearity of travel narratives. By choosing to add
poems to her narrative, Britton responds to the sea's cyclical nature, and listening to the sea's
rhythms positions her as *homing* through her poetry to the sea. Recurring at irregular intervals
throughout her narrative, these poems could then be seen as the surfacing of the sea in her
narrative, expressing itself through her poems and experience of it. The irregularity also
demonstrates a certain resistance to being molded or shaped. As Attala explains, “[b]eing a
liquid is about a particular type of movement. ... Any sense of permanence, solidity or stability
is a temporal illusion” (26). Through their interspersion in her narrative, Britton's own
publication takes on a watery quality as it resists any regular structuration. In her introduction,
Britton also explains how “[w]e depend utterly on this blue heart for our survival, development
and wellbeing” (*Saltwater* 4). Britton argues that returning to the sea as a home would reveal a
care for the natural world and our own wateriness. She presents the sea, but also, more
essentially, water, as sustaining human life. Drawing upon the watery quality of the sea,
Neimanis explains how “embodied knowledge of our bodies is always becoming, moving,
changing” (*Bodies* 57). In the same way that Britton’s poems echo the sea, Liz Clark moves
with the sea in an instinctual way:

The obligation to steer has multiple rewards. Hands on the wheel, I'm engaged in every gust, every passing cloud, every lifting wave, as *Swell* and I surf down the following seas. ... Plus, maneuvering her through mile after mile of dynamic ocean, I become an active participant in the scene. As the waves pass beneath us, they pull the rudder right or left, and my arms strengthen in the long hours at the wheel. I gaze out at the ocean panorama: ever-changing, ever-wondrous. I follow wavelets on the sea surface, the teeny ones stacking upon the next, always in hot pursuit of their mates up ahead – until suddenly they are both overtaken by a much larger wave, and swallowed in a gurgle of white foam. (280)

This passage presents Clark as learning her home space and evolving alongside it. As she becomes an active participant in the sailing of *Swell*, the subtleties of the sea are revealed to her, and in turn, the sea is also an agent in the sailing of *Swell*. In this way, an active exchange takes place between Clark and the sea. Through the use of an anaphora on the word “every,” Clark demonstrates how she is a part of the whole seascape. This is reminiscent of what Ingersoll calls oceanic literacy:

> Oceanic literacy is a knowledge of the exact location on the outer reef where the surf breaks and where one's footing may still be found, it is a knowledge of the place in the sea where the water is black from depth or from deep holes in the rock, and it is a knowledge of where the sea is very shallow and impassable for canoes. Oceanic literacy is the ability to read the cloud colors that indicate a passing squall, or the ripples on the water's surface telling of an approaching gust or of a school of fish being chased by a larger predator. An oceanic literacy requires an oceanic sensibility. (81)
Knowing the sea is based on sensitivity. Knowing the sea is also a bringing together of different
elements so that a better understanding of the place may be achieved. In this way, the home sea
is also made. Clark's use of the anaphora further reinforces this, as she presents herself as
present to the wind, sky, and wave, which all indicate a forward movement. The home sea is
then in motion: fluid. In turn, the sea is always changing, as is Clark, shifting between the
"following seas" and herself as "follow[ing]" (Swell 280). The interchangeability of positions
between the two creates a dynamic that, drawing upon the fluidity of the sea, instills a way of
knowing that is reminiscent of how Neimanis explained that embodied knowledge is based on
an exchange and reciprocity that is always fluctuating (Bodies 57). Accordingly, the home space
of the sea that Clark submits here is active, in movement, as she sails across it, but it also
presents them as both deeply entwined together. Clark is engaged, attached, and attracted to the
sea, which in turn pushes and pulls her along.

Homing for Liz Clark and Easkey Britton is synonymous with the sea. Through the writing of the sea as a home place, they bend the traditional home-away-home structure and engage in a dynamic space whose fluidity permeates their sense of self, which in turn sees them sustained by this aquatic milieu. In the rhythmic movement of the waves, they find solace and comfort. Nonetheless, the sea as a home also reveals not only the care that they hold for it but also the reciprocal exchange that takes place between woman and sea. Subsequently, a return to the sea, to our roots, would see the water in us resurface and foster our own fluid nature. By drawing upon Carson and Neimanis, the home sea is never separate from us but resides in each and every one of us, which indicates that the home is always in motion.
5. A she-ocean: writing the seascape as feminine

In her 2000 book *Ecofeminist Philosophy*, the ecofeminist philosopher Karen J. Warren argues that, as humans, we are all specifically situated and relational.<fnref n="131" /> *Who* we are, our identity, is intrinsically linked to *where* we are in the world. Subsequently, features of our identities, such as gender, affectional orientation, and geographic location, are integral parts of our nature and sense of self (128). The latter then posits that a subject is situated and relational. Warren then expands on this subject, proving how it challenges “the conceptually essentialist view that there is some one set of necessary and sufficient condition properties ... which makes a being ... morally considerable” (128). From this view, nonhuman nature may comprise some of the following properties that make it morally considerable: “rationality, sentiency, the ability to use a language, possession of a soul, possession of morally relevant interests, being the subject of a life, and simply being alive” (74). Furthermore, Warren explains how considering nonhuman nature as morally considerable first takes the form of care, which sees the latter as “active participants in our world” that are “deserving of our care and attention” (76). Situatedness and relationality would then see a body as being influenced by where it is. From there on, a human body would then allow other nonhuman bodies, such as water, to be morally considerable and act as shaping agents in the world that are deserving of care. Situatedness and relationality, by considering nonhuman nature as morally considerable, would then reveal it as alive. To then parallel Warren’s situatedness and relationality with Astrida Neimanis’ materiality, it is interesting to note how human and nonhuman embodiment are two of the many expressions of water, where the subject gives and shapes meaning from the water they embody (*Bodies* 24). For Neimanis, then, “water is thus also specifically what we make it, in the sense that it is not simply something ‘out there’ – environment, resource, commodity, backdrop – but also the stuff of human bodies, and never separate from our own incontestable materiality” (24). Water would then find its expression through various bodies, but it is also “what we make it,” as a subject’s own situated materiality shapes how water can be perceived: it may take the shape of a human body, but the human body, and hence the water that constitutes it, also shapes how other bodies of water are perceived by it. Drawing from Warren and Neimanis, a woman’s situatedness and relationality within and to a body of water, such as the sea, would then extend care towards it but also influence how this sea is perceived. Women’s situatedness within a watery milieu brings about the following questions: could the perception of another body of

<footnote n="131">¹³¹ Warren, Karen J. *Ecofeminist Philosophy. Op. cit.*, 90.</footnote>
water then be influenced by a woman's own watery embodiment? How could the writing of a feminine sea be done without reinforcing reductive associations between women and nonhuman nature? As I will argue, I believe that an ecofeminist and blue humanities understanding of our position in the world would allow the writing of a feminine sea, as it would be grounds for resisting the harmful associations made between women and nonhuman nature by presenting ourselves as intrinsically linked to our relations, location, and materiality in this perception of the world. As Elizabeth DeLoughrey points out, submersion can give rise to new knowledges and ontologies, as the very nature of water allows age-old associations to dissolve.<fnref n="132" />

Another significant aspect to consider and be aware of when writing the sea as feminine is that of how, traditionally, “the land is personified as a woman the explorer has to explore and ravish,”<fnref n="133" /> which reveals the unhealthy associations that have been made between women and nature and that are still at play today. Writing nonhuman nature as feminine in a way that renders the previous as victimized, inert, and passive, draws upon the negative associations that have often been made between nature and women, which then also writes women as having no agency. As Warren herself explains, language that either feminizes nature and/or animalizes women in a patriarchal culture where women and/or nature are considered inferior reinforces the domination of nature and/or women (27). As Patrick Murphy notes, attributing human qualities to nature, or more specifically, “sex-typing a gender-free entity,” is also harmful, as it furthermore infers that nonhuman nature’s own subjectivity is not recognized, as it is perceived through the prism of a human’s own reality, where it is thus shaped according to their own lived experience of the world.<fnref n="134" /> However, acknowledging one’s situatedness as informing our experience of the world would be grounds for subverting the harmful implications of this sex-typing, as it would view nonhuman nature as morally considerable and take into account its agency in the formation of the world. If our situatedness is also watery, would that not indicate an interrelatedness to other bodies of water, extending one watery perception to another? Be that as it may, Warren remarks how ecofeminists themselves “disagree about both the nature of those connections and whether some of the connections are potentially liberating or grounds for reinforcing harmful stereotypes about women” (21). Here, it would be important to be reminded of how Warren herself explains that these connections are only harmful *in* a patriarchal culture. Could the writing of the sea be done without drawing on these harmful associations? If so, how could it be done? Understanding and acknowledging one’s subjectivity when writing nonhuman

<footnote n="132">¹³² DeLoughrey, Elizabeth. “The Oceanic Turn.” *Op. cit.*, 249, 244.</footnote>

<footnote n="133">¹³³ Canadas, Laure, et al. *Voyages Et Migrations. Op. cit.*, 53.</footnote>

<footnote n="134">¹³⁴ Murphy, Patrick D. *Literature. Op. cit.*, 67.</footnote>
nature as feminine would recognize those connections as not necessarily harmful, as they would not be universalizing but personal. Furthermore, acknowledging one's situatedness would allow a person to view nonhuman nature as alive and as an agent in the formation of the world. It is impossible to ever capture the whole complexity of what nature is, but what Clark and Britton offer is one view of nature: their view, through which they listen to and perceive nature through their material situatedness and relationality.

Moreover, the traveling body presents a *becoming* on the road where, through transiency, the self is constructed through a dialogical interaction with an ecosystem that in turn is perceived as a moving home. The making of a home out of the moving environment then presents the traveling woman as resisting the structures of a patriarchal culture by redefining the bounds of the home-away-home travel narrative structure. Following this example, writing the sea as feminine would be another way of fostering their own perception of the world and resisting the harmful associations made between women and nonhuman nature by presenting an alternative way of experiencing the latter. In like manner, one way of writing the sea as feminine while resisting harmful associations would be to view the sea as morally considerable—as an agent and as alive. Alexandra Ganser draws upon the philosopher Henri Lefèbvre's three planes of space to explore how a writer can avoid dualisms. According to Lefèbvre, there are three planes of space: the *perceived* space, the *conceived* representation of space, and the *lived representational* space of the imagination (63). While the first and second planes of space deal with physical and discursive space, what is interesting to note is how the third space, the *lived representational* space of the imagination, is the directly lived space that is experienced through a body's own subjectivity, which in turn recognizes that specific space as alive (63). Ganser then goes on to argue how Lefèbvre's third space could be understood as a way to avoid the structures of dualisms that are present in a patriarchal culture (64). Viewing the sea as the *lived representational* space of the imagination would understand it as subjective, as an agent, as alive, and thus requiring interpretation. It would view the sea as morally considerable. The aforementioned is reminiscent of Warren's situatedness and Neimanis' materialism, where interpreting the sea's subjectivity through our own would then emphasize the personal nature and interrelatedness of that interpretation and thus resist the harmful universalization of a perceived space. Moreover, Neimanis, by drawing on the philosopher Luce Irigaray, explains how

[f]eminine bodies are fluid ... The feminine cannot be known as feminine (as sexuate difference) within a phallogocentric logic because this logic is predicated on rigid and static forms, solid truth and knowable
entities. Because the real properties of fluids cannot be accommodated within phallogocentrism, neither
can the (virtual) reality of women and the feminine. (78–79)

If fluidity (i.e., water) and the feminine as virtual (i.e., feminine subjectivity) cannot exist in a
phallogocentric world whose values are unmovable and rigid, they would be able to in a flowing
feminine one. Writing the sea as feminine would then reinforce the fluid nature of water and
foster a listening that would see it become an agent and alive. To add to Neimanis and Irigaray's
blue humanities' understanding of the sea as a feminine and fluid space, Patrick Murphy's
ecofeminist dialogics would reinforce this position as it

requires this effort to render the other, primarily constituted by androcentrism as women and nature (and
actually as the two intertwined: nature-as-woman and woman-as-nature), as speaking subjects within
patriarchy in order to subvert that patriarchy not only by decentering it but also by proposing other centers.
(Literature 12–13)

The fluidity of the sea fosters different perspectives and would thus offer other “centers,” other
perceptions, expressions, and understandings of it that do not build upon the associations often
made between women and nature. The sea as a fluid space would allow it to give rise to various
understandings and interpretations of it, some of which may be feminine. An ecofeminist and
blue humanities writing of the sea as feminine would then explore different forms of feminine
embodiment and how water, by its fluid nature, allows this process to take place. Instead of
being harmful, the writing of the sea as feminine, by being situated and relational, by being
self-aware and subjective, but also by morally considering it, offers another “center,” another
way of perceiving the sea as an agent and as, essentially, alive. Liz Clark and Easkey Britton,
in their narratives, offer their interpretation of the sea as a feminine force that gives shape to its
own subjectivity and materiality.

Astrida Neimanis argues that “[w]ater, as we know, is a shape-shifter – … taking up
residence in and as bodies of all kinds” (80). Water’s ability to transform itself and move
between different bodies of water reveals its own fluidity and how each perception of the sea is
then situated and relational, which points to the ways in which water can thus always be seen
to reinvent itself within a patriarchal culture. In Clark and Britton’s narratives, the sea resurfaces
as feminine. After setting off on a long ocean passage and having sailed almost thirteen
thousand nautical miles, Liz Clark writes how

[t]o me, the sea is more she than he, with her frequent mood swings, exquisite curves, ability to make you
stare, and obvious sensitivity to the moon. Our relationship goes beyond romance. She’s always there –
providing play, companionship, perspective, nourishment, and emotional relief with her liquid embrace.
There are times I can't understand her, but I can't always understand myself either. It's okay. Loving her gives me so much more than fearing her. (Swell 143)

In this passage where Clark explicitly writes the sea as feminine, she does so by writing the sea as having some of the following qualities: the sea is presented as being rational: “perspective,” sensitive: “mood swings,” having a soul by offering “companionship,” and as being alive; the sea is thus presented as being morally considerable. Through Clark’s writing, it then becomes the active subject of the sentence and is thus shown as having agency. As such, presenting the sea as morally considerable then reveals it as first and foremost alive and as an agent that is shown to influence the world around it, including Clark in return. Accordingly, the sea, through Clark’s situatedness, reveals itself as an active feminine presence in her life. In addition, Clark starts her explanation by affirming her perception of the sea as being subjective, inferring that another may not perceive the sea as such and, more importantly, that the sea may not be wholly feminine either. Furthermore, with the use of the adverb “more,” Clark does not dismiss the fact that the sea has other gendered qualities. As such, by recognizing herself as specifically situated, Clark avoids the harmful associations that have often been made between women and nonhuman nature. Drawing from Neimanis, Clark’s own materiality as a woman gives rise to the perception of another body of water, the sea, as feminine while not dismissing the sea’s fluid identity as always changing, moving, and evolving. As Mary Kate Azcuy explains, “balance in the new feminine environment can occur only after the original becomes disrupted; the female images associated with womb, earth, and sea, must be taken from patriarchy and transformed, recreated, not as anti-motherhood, but as female space.”<fnref n="135" /> In this short passage, Clark then disrupts the traditional image of a feminine sea by presenting it as being morally considerable and having agency, but also, more importantly, as having a personality that makes it unique. In the same way, Easkey Britton proposes another way of perceiving the sea as feminine that is reminiscent of Lefèbvre’s third space. As a teenager, she painted of her experience of surfing the Irish coast, and what came out of her imagination was a furiously wild sea goddess:

> I tried to capture the energy I felt when caught by a wave. I painted an ocean rising up in all its fury, embodied by a blue sea goddess. Her mouth was wide open in a roar, creating the sound a winter storm makes in the wild North Atlantic Ocean, ... This must be what also attracts me to such wild elements and winter storms: the freedom to roar if I want to. (Saltwater 34)

<footnote n="135">¹³⁵ Azcuy, Mary K. “Louise Gluck, Feminism and Nature in Firstborn’s ‘The Egg.’” *Women Writing Nature: A Feminist View*, edited by Barbara J. Cook, Lexington, Lanham, 2008, pp. 57–65, 58.</footnote>
Here, the sea, like Clark's perception of it, is feminine and alive. The sea surfaces through Britton's experience of it, which she then imagines and recognizes as living and breathing. However, it also takes on another guise. While Clark's sea may be described in the way a sister would, Britton's sea offers her freedom through its wildness, embodied by a sea goddess. The images of the sea roaring and that of the blue sea goddess frequently reappear throughout her narrative, which points to the fact that she perceives the sea as an essentially wild element that is unpredictable and, in this way, free. However, it is also important to note here that the sea underneath Britton's paintbrush becomes an embodiment of various other bodies: an amalgamation and shape-shifter in a way, which links back to Irigaray's definition of the sea as feminine by its fluidity. The sea goddess represents the ocean, the wind, and the storm, all of which convey the power of the word “roar.” *Roar* can be used to describe the sound made by either animals or the wind and is not usually used to describe that made by humans. As well as not having human speech, this points to how this blue sea goddess is also more than human, more than a woman, and conveys a stronger message of freedom and wildness, brought about by the fluid and shifting nature of water. Britton then also proposes a new center for understanding and perceiving the sea as feminine, as it conveys the feeling of fluidity and relatedness between different bodies of water and elements, all while offering Britton freedom through this shifting quality.

Despite writing the sea as feminine while positing their situatedness, they also do so almost instinctively, where the sea is shown to have agency by being presented as a life-giving force. In *Swell*, Liz Clark, after leaving an island, writes that “As *Swell* pushes out the pass into the ocean, I feel reborn” (141). This short passage demonstrates how the sea is written as a powerful force that gestates new life and new possibilities. A pass, in nautical terms, is a narrow passage through a reef that connects the open sea to the calmer waters of an island. Through this imagery of the pass, Clark likens the ocean to a birth canal in a way that harbors potential and presents the open sea as offering the capacity to foster new beginnings. The sea then takes on the mantle of a parent that will offer Clark new experiences and guide her on her journey, through which she will learn from that ecosystem. Furthermore, this is reminiscent of how Rachel Carson explains that the sea is the origin of all life (*The Sea* 7–8) and how it thus gestates possibilities and life. In the same way, Easkey Britton writes of how, immersed in a cave pool, she “felt protected, the pool narrowing at either end reinforcing a sense of the feminine form, womb-like in shape. The waving fronds of kelp felt like the protective folds of labia, so maybe a vulva is a better description” (*Saltwater* 156). Through water, Britton is connected to the
moving water, the kelp, and the rockface, and she poses the sea as a literal shape shifter here, as the sea, through time and erosion, has shaped the cave into a womb-like space. She then presents the sea as having the agency to shape other spaces and bodies, but also as having the agency to gestate life and potential within its ecosystem. Britton's idea of protection also reinforces the idea of care, which Warren posits as being the quality that allows us to perceive the other as an agent in the world. However, in these two passages, it feels as if the traditional roles were reversed: the sea cares for both Clark and Britton and thus gestates them through its waters, instead of Clark and Britton caring for the sea and then seeing it as alive. Through this reversal of roles, both authors grant the sea more agency. Both of these passages denote an intimate connection to and perception of the seascape that essentially brings it to life by presenting it as a shaping agent in the world. To then draw on Neimanis' materiality, embodied water here, gives shape and meaning to other forms of embodied water. These two passages from *Swell* and *Saltwater in the Blood* show great potential, as they describe the sea as being womb-like and being able to birth both comfort and potential without writing it explicitly as feminine. Subsequently, the womb-like sea could be any body, which ultimately respects its fluid nature. Neimanis further draws on water's gestationality, explaining that

> if we are all watery, then we all harbour the potential of watery gestationality within our corporeal selves.
> 
> Again, this gestationality need not take the form of a human reprosexual womb: we may be gestational as lover, as neighbour, as accidental stranger. We learn gestationality from water; we repeat its potential in and as watery bodies, too. (*Bodies* 69)

The sea as feminine in Clark and Britton's work then becomes an agent of change, not only by proposing new centers of writing the feminine but also by engendering possibilities of gestationality.

In their narratives, Liz Clark and Easkey Britton, through their own situatedness, challenge and dismiss the traditional understanding of the land as an inert source that must be exploited and instead propose new centers for understanding the sea as feminine, which ultimately reveal the sea as morally considerable, alive, and an agent in the shaping of the world. The sea's agency further indicates that Clark and Britton engage in a dialogue with it, which in turn becomes a speaking subject, which then decenters the harmful effects of a phallogocentric view of the land. They further avoid harmful associations by writing the sea as drawing on feminine qualities without writing them explicitly as such, thus indicating the liberating potential of the sea as a shape-shifter, becoming an agent of possibilities and of life. Through
their writing of the sea, it then becomes alive and thus resists dualisms by becoming fluid and gestating potential and life.
## 6. Diving into inner seas: developing an *intimasea* with the ecotone

He'e nalu, the Hawaiian word for surfing that stems from the word nalu and which can either be defined as “waves” or as a “meditate” (Ingersoll 45), points to the shore, the place where surfing happens, as being a meeting place that fosters the emergence of thoughts and identity in relation to the sea. Another definition of the word reveals and strengthens the idea of surfing as being relational by positing it as an intimate exchange that harbors the bond between a surfer and the surfed wave: nalu also means “amnion, amniotic fluid” (Ingersoll 45). As a place that gestates, the shore allows for the creation of an intimasea, a relationship between surfer and sea based upon a way of being that is inherent to the edge of the sea.

The shore, or the edge of the sea, as Rachel Carson calls it, is a place of encounter. It is “a world that keeps alive the sense of continuing creation and of the relentless drive of life. Each time that I enter it, I gain some new awareness of its beauty and its deeper meanings, sensing that intricate fabric of life by which one creature is linked with another, and each with its surroundings.”136 Through Carson’s words, the shore becomes a world in itself, one that is brimming with possibilities, meanings, and endless creation. All parts of that world are brought together by the sea, with whom its inhabitants share an intimate bond that thus fosters the emergence of life and relationships that are all deeply embedded within the shifting margins of the tide line. However, Carson presents herself as only part of that world for a short amount of time; her presence there is temporary. Albeit, when part of the shore, she still senses the intricate relations that link one species to the next and to their element, and in this way, she presents herself as also in relation to the sea as she becomes aware of those watery relationships. The sea is then facilitative of relations, as it helps develop for all those who enter it an intimasea. In the same vein, Susan A. C. Rosen points to the specific qualities that are inherent to the shore, disclosing how

[t]he shore in particular is a specific type of ecotone, a boundary zone, an area with the greatest potential for change or a place that is more sensitive to change, a place that acts as a threshold. So the coast is not just a boundary or an edge, it is a margin that provides a place for the interaction between two or more ecosystems, which results in the ecotone having properties that do not exist in either of the adjacent ecosystems.137

<footnote n="136">136 Carson, Rachel. *The Edge. Op. cit.*, 2.</footnote>

<footnote n="137">137 Rosen, Susan A. C. “Littoral Women.” *Op. cit.*, 21.</footnote>
Rosen here defines the shore as a “margin” and not an “edge.” The word “edge” suggests a limitation, while “margin” can either be defined as an edge or as a border, the latter of which indicates the separating line between two or more elements. Nonetheless, what I believe Rosen is hinting at is that “margin,” in the sense of it being a border, would, instead of separating two or more elements, bring them into dialogue with one another, thus harboring the idea of the shore being a place of creation and interconnectedness that Carson suggested. The bringing together of two or more elements through the shore would be thus granted by its own unique “properties,” one of which I would then argue is its ability to develop *intimaseas*. The shore is then seen as a deeply relational space that draws upon the interactions between different elements, namely those between water and earth and water and air, to foster creation and interconnectedness. The intimate meeting of shoreline elements engenders the creation of life, whose very existence is due to their being in relation to their surrounding environment. Bringing these various elements into dialogue opens up the space for possibility, change, and the creation of relationships between its inhabitants and the sea. The margin of the sea becomes a unique space due to its in-betweenness, which is thus facilitative of intimacy, as the liminal quality of the sea infers a more intimate relation between two or more elements. The shore thus favors interaction, exchange, and relationships, but also requires, as Rosen argues, “new ways of examination.”<fnref n="138" /> One way would be to understand how the shore, as a specific space, acknowledges the unique quality of the life that resides there, and how relations are formed to and with the sea. This mode of examination would be what the blue humanities academic Melody Jue calls milieu specific analysis:

> By offering entirely different conditions than land ... the ocean is a material and imaginative space for the conditions of perception that we have taken for granted. Milieu specific analysis acknowledges that specific thought forms emerge in relation to different environments, and that these environments are significant for how we form questions about the world, and how we imagine communication within it.<fnref n="139" />

Being a place of interaction and meeting, the shore's liminal quality would allow for the emergence of a specific kind of intimacy. Milieu specific analysis would thus acknowledge that thoughts, ways of being, and relations emerge in relation to a specific environment. Furthermore, “in relation” implies an intimate bond between two or more elements, thus inferring the affectionate connection between someone and their environment. However, Jue does not specifically address the shore in her explanation of milieu specific analysis, but the

<footnote n="138">¹³⁸ Rosen, Susan A. C. “Littoral Women.” *Op. cit.*, 21.</footnote>

<footnote n="139">¹³⁹ Jue, Melody. *Wild Blue Media. Op. cit.*, 3.</footnote>
whole ocean. By reading Jue, the sea is then seen as equally relational in its entirety, and it can
thus engender interconnectedness at the same level as the shore. The sea is a paradigm of the
interconnectedness of various ecosystems: the shore with land, but also the sea with air, which
informs its currents and shapes its waves (Carson, *The Sea* 111, 130–131). Furthermore, the sea
alters one’s perception, signaling that a new way of understanding must be created within the
sea, one that is thus unique to water: an *intimasea*. Applied to the sea, milieu specific analysis
would explore how specific ways of being emerge from being with the sea and what
relationships are then developed through the altering of one’s perceptions. The idea of the sea
as relational is also one that is advanced by Luci Attala, who, in her recent book *How Water
Makes Us Human*, reveals how “water cannot and does not develop in isolation, but rather forms
because of, and through, its intersecting relationships with surrounding influences and other
substances, which means that one can say that we are as much human as we are water” (41).
Attala then reveals how water is relational: water finds expression in various bodies of water,
such as our own, and then takes their shape. However, Jue argued that water alters our
perceptions, and we must then develop a new understanding through it. According to Jue, the
sea is equally influential on our sense of self, and those who choose to enter it must develop
new understandings in relation to the sea. By then drawing upon Jue and Attala, the sea as an
ecotone harbors the intimate dialogue that happens between two or more elements as they are
seen to influence one another. For instance, Carson in *The Edge of the Sea* demonstrates how
limpets have adapted to shore life by developing a flattened cone shell with which they protect
themselves from the surf by latching themselves onto a rockface (66). This example illustrates
how shore life is relational: the dialoguing of sea and land led to the creation of a particular
shore and rockface, on which the limpet has intricately adapted itself to both elements in order
to survive. Interacting with the sea would then favor the development of an intimate relationship
that would foster life as one body of water is brought into contact with another. Similarly,
Astrida Neimanis explains how water gestates beings:

> The maternal waters in which we as bodies are created and nurtured are a part of the greater element of water which continues to sustain us, protect us, and nurture us, both intra- and intercorporeally, after we emerge from these wombs. We might understand this passage as one from a smaller ocean womb to a larger one, or from one tiny sea to a greater one. (*Bodies* 86)

Neimanis writes the sea as relational but also as more. As aforementioned, *nalu* can be defined
as “amniotic,” and curiously enough, saltwater has the same density as amniotic fluid (Britton,
*Saltwater* 168), all of which point to the capacity of the sea to gestate thoughts, life, relations,
etc. Saltwater, according to Neimanis, can thus be understood as gestating being—one that
emerges from a relationship with the sea. Neimanis argues that we are always a part of the in-
betweenness of water and not separate from it, and her argument could at first seem to be
contrary to Carson's. However, it is the sea's liminal quality that shapes our being, as, in
accordance with Rosen, the idea of gestation still implies a sense of separation. Rosen's margin
could here be the gestating membrane that Neimanis explains as facilitating exchange (98).
There is then a sense of separation within the idea of gestation, one that is reminiscent of Carson
when she goes to the seashore. While we may choose to go to the seashore, there is always a
shore within us, one whose margin/membrane gestated us into being and that still sustains us.
As the womb turns into an ocean, the membrane can also change into a surfboard for instance,
or skin, for the membrane's form of expression is fluid and is an element that facilitates the
dialogue between two elements through which both develop an intimasea. The membrane
allows for one to discover the other and for both to influence and shape one another as they
develop an interconnectedness that is inherent to this ecotone. However, one must also choose
to enter the sea for this exchange to happen, which is why choosing to go there harbors the
possibility of developing one's self in relation to the sea. Subsequently, the sea, as an ecotone,
is a place that fosters an intimasea that is based upon the relationship that one person has with
the sea. Furthermore, Karin Amimoto Ingersoll advances how “[s]urfing is an act of profound
significance with great potential … as it helps … develop an intimate relationship with the
ocean and shapes the ongoing development of … identity through … specific culture” (46).
Surfing is then an intimate act of exchange between the surfing body and the surfed wave that
requires an interconnectedness that is brought about by the surfboard, which then allows a
relationship to develop between the surfer and the sea. Applying these concepts to Liz Clark's
Swell and Easkey Britton's Saltwater in the Blood would help to understand how these two
women write of the sea in such intimate ways. As they choose to enter the sea, their perspectives
are altered through the membrane that is facilitative of this exchange: the surfboard, through
which they develop their watery relationship with the sea that sees them both influencing each
other through a dialogue that becomes an intimasea.

As Carson enters the shoreline through her walks, so do Clark and Britton enter that watery world through a myriad of ways, including the act of surfing. When Liz Clark goes to the lineup, she enters in relation to the sea. As Ingersoll remarks, “[h]e'e nalu is also a process of ... being still, through movement, by listening to your own heartbeat create a rhythm with the ocean's gestures. He'e nalu is an exchange through awareness and a form of meditation in which the mind exhales difference and the soul inhales an intimate bond” (104). Ingersoll
describes the bond created with the sea as an affectionate connection between the surfer and the surfed wave, where one heartbeat echoes another and thus brings the two closer together. Furthermore, the formation of this bond seems almost instinctual, according to Ingersoll, as it is the heart that guides the creation of this ocean connection. In the same way, Clark writes of her experience of surfing while using the semantic field of care:

> During these sessions, I surf for the feeling of freedom and unity, for the way the soft salt water caresses my skin and the sun warms my back, and to gaze at the ever-evolving clouds and majestic arcs of the wings of seabirds circling and diving around me. Each push of wave energy is a gift from the sea, from the wind, from the sun, from the whole miracle of our spinning planet and mysterious universe. (Swell 183–84)

When Clark enters the lineup, she gains awareness of the interconnectedness of her surroundings, that in turn present her with, whilst also including her in, a certain “unity.” This unity presents her as in relation to water, sun, wind and birds, thus proving how this ecotone is facilitative of relationships. Through this connection her perception is altered as she also gains a heightened sensitivity to the sea, and other natural elements, which in turn become agents as they become the subjects of the sentence. What emerges from Clark’s embodied presence in the lineup, are relations thus unique to the sea as an ecotone. Jue’s milieu specificity may come to mind here, as what emerges in relation to this specific environment is a romantic encounter based upon care and love, as the elements are seen to be affectionate as they both caress and warm Clark who, in turn, gazes back at them affectionately. Here the margin/membrane becomes the surfboard, as it allows Clark to be present to the elements of the lineup and to that of the surf, thus uniting them through the act of surfing. From this exchange comes a “gift” from the interconnectedness of the ecotone’s elements. The gift here takes the shape of a wave, with which Clark may surf and dialogue with those elements. Subsequently, Clark demonstrates how the sea as an ecotone favors the development of an *intimasea* that is thus facilitative of relations. However, she also presents these relationships as gestating, as what emerges are “gifts,” thus highlighting the affectionate quality of this milieu. After immersing herself in the sea, Easkey Britton sits naked by its shore, and the resulting interaction is described as intimate if not sexual:

> Drying out on its [the boulder's] surface, like an offering on an altar, I felt its hardness press into my back. Beads of sweat rolled across my skin. The gentle wind raced off the sea and wrapped itself around me. I experienced a heightened sensitivity, the shock of warm air on a cold, wet body, a growing wetness. The rush and surprise as the breeze reached between my legs, sending shock-waves of pleasure into my belly
and up my spine to the crown of my head. ... The sun, wind and water felt like lovers leaving a salty coating on my bare flesh, still pink from the cold. (Saltwater 148)

Britton on the other hand, presents herself as being an offering on an altar to the elements, thus demonstrating how the ecotone favors an almost sacred bond. In this exchange, her skin becomes a margin/membrane, and Stacy Alaimo remarks how skin, due to its liminal position and intimate relation as a threshold between the self and other elements and bodies, becomes almost holy.<fnref n="140" /> However, it is the orgasmic quality of her encounter with the shore which renders it holy, indicating that for Britton, *intimasea*, is a fully embodied presence with the shore that is sacred and spiritual that goes beyond the physical interaction of shore elements. Like Clark, Britton's senses are heightened, but she presents the encounter as erotic instead of romantic. Sarah Hulme Hill notes upon how “Western women writers consistently think and write about landscape in intimate, often filial, and even sexual terms” (11). In Britton's case, the ecotone takes the form of a lover who awakens her senses through the margin/membrane of her skin. The resulting exchange between Britton and the shore thus becomes sacred and reverential. Furthermore, it is her coming out of the sea and staying on the shore which has facilitated this exchange, thus demonstrating how the shore as an ecotone presents an interconnectedness of all elements. Drawing upon Rosen, it can be noted how the shore as a margin promoting exchange, is thus reinforced by the fact that water, rockface, wind and sun are seen to be in dialogue with Britton's body as they move through her. The shore influences Britton, who then writes of a visceral *intimasea*.

While the shore is written in Clark and Britton's narratives as a lover, it is also written as gestating their being. Neimanis remarks how “[w]e are created in water, we gestate in water, we are born into an atmosphere of the same water although more diffuse, we take in water, we harbour it, it sustains and protects us, it leaves us…at the same time as we are always, to some extent, in it” (Bodies 86). From here on, it is interesting to see how both Clark and Britton depict the sea as a womb, nurturing them through its salty embrace. During a bout of self-doubt, Clark writes of how she is “sitting on the bow in total darkness, my harness clipped securely to the mast like a baby’s umbilical cord to its mother” (Swell 49). In this passage, the boat becomes the margin/membrane that connects Clark to the sea, which can then be understood to be gestating her being, soothing her, and waiting for her to grow. Accordingly, Clark’s journey aboard *Swell*—the margin/membrane—facilitates an exchange between Clark and the sea that is based upon mutual care. Drawing upon Hulme Hill, the sea’s *intimasea* in this excerpt can

<footnote n="140">¹⁴⁰ Alaimo, Stacy. “‘Skin Dreaming.’” *Op. cit.*, 134.</footnote>
also be seen to be presented as a mother womb-like figure: sitting in darkness on the bow of her
boat, the only movement being the rocking and swaying of the latter, this passage can recall the
image of a womb that, as Neimanis says, harbors, sustains, and protects. We can then
understand the water as a second natural womb and mother, whose task is to always and
continually support, shape, and sustain Clark on a mental level; she presents herself as growing
through this intimate relationship with the sea. Furthermore, this idea of a womb-sea is
reinforced by the fact that saltwater has the same density as amniotic fluid, the fluid that protects
an unborn child. In the same way, Easkey Britton, in a drawing entitled *Water Holds*, draws a
woman in a fetal position inside a skate's egg (see Appendix 3). Skate or shark eggs are small
pouches in which young skates, sharks, or rays are gestated. These skate eggs are also called
mermaid purses, and through their carrying and protecting of young fish, they symbolize
fertility, protection, and growth.<fnref n="141" /> By drawing a woman inside a skate's egg, Britton fashions
a watery margin/membrane through the skate's egg, thus implying how a watery connection
originates within the sea and not out of it: the sea gestates a becoming through water. The
margin/membrane connects the woman to the sea, the latter of which helps the woman grow
within the case. Furthermore, the woman's fetal position implies that being in the ocean,
gestated by it, provides both comfort and security. Through the comparison of the sea to a
gestating milieu, both Clark and Britton's presence within the sea becomes not temporary but
endless; it is their place of origin and the place they find most comforting. It is a shaping force
in their lives. As the place where they feel most safe and comforted, these images of the sea as
nurturing them then present the sea as becoming Carson's site of "endless creation," as both
Clark and Britton write of an *intimasea* whereupon they position themselves as being gestated
by the sea.

As aforementioned, saltwater has the same density as amniotic fluid, and *nalu* means
both “wave” and “amniotic fluid.” Subsequently, milieu specific analysis reveals that both
Clark and Britton’s relation to the sea is one that sustains them both through an intimate
exchange that is inherent to the sea. Their bond with the sea is both affectionate and intimate,
as their writings see them emerging through their loving connection to the sea, who is at the
same time a lover and a gestating womb. Water as relational then facilitates the exchange
between elements and women, who, through a margin/membrane, embrace a reciprocal

<footnote n="141">141 WyseWitch UK. “The Magic of Mermaid’s Purses.” *WyseWitchUK*, 21 Mar. 2018, wysewitchuk.wordpress.com/2018/03/21/the-magic-of-mermaids-purses/.</footnote>
dialogue that then enables the emergence of an *intimasea*: a way of being, a relation, that is inherent to this watery milieu.
### III. Encountering others and becoming the wave

In the introduction to her 2008 book *When Species Meet*, Donna Haraway explains how an individual does not exist in isolation but rather emerges from their relations with what she calls companion species.142 According to Haraway, companion species are not only the “bacteria, fungi, protists,” and so on that are necessary to our being alive (3–4), but they are also those with whom we interact that constitute who we are, how we think, how we behave, and our environment. Subsequently, when Haraway argues that “to be one is always to become with many,” she brings to light how these relations involve an obligatory two-way relationship that is mutually constitutive. The writing of a companion species would then, as Sidney I. Dobrin remarks upon reading Rachel Carson’s sea trilogy, “acknowledge nonhuman ways of knowing as central to understanding ocean,” as “terrestrial ways of knowing and aquatic ways of knowing” are different.143 Accordingly, when two species co-evolve together, they merge two ways of being, which is reminiscent of how ecofeminism emerged from two movements but also of how the shore itself brings and connects bodies together, whereupon humans may be introduced to new forms of knowledge and embodiment from humans, aquatic nonhumans, and also from the sea’s very quality as a milieu as it becomes a subject within their narratives. When traveling and surfing, Liz Clark and Easkey Britton form bonds with nonhumans and humans alike and recognize these relationships as mutually influential; they become watery companion species. Similar to tidal movements, the latter relationships then require a groundless attitude as they are created in a watery milieu. They present a fluid ebb and flow of knowledge, care, and love between two or more bodies of water, thereby revealing how identity is deeply entwined not only with whom someone interacts with but also with the milieu in which their relationship is formed. Furthermore, being in water posits a blurring with the sea, whereupon the latter, as a subject, initiates a watery movement within the immersed body. Their body’s temporary presence in water then sees the immersed body extend itself like water, where movement and thinking become more fluid, thereby pointing out how the sea itself becomes a companion species and affects a person’s identity.

<footnote n="142">142 Haraway, Donna J. “When Species Meet.” *Op. cit.*, 4.</footnote>

<footnote n="143">143 Dobrin, Sidney I. “Unearthing Ecocriticism.” *Op. cit.*, 27.</footnote>