My 2026 Diane Zinna Creative Nonfiction Prize Winning Submission

"On Salt and Misogyny", by Sabrina Harvill

In 2021, I lifted shaking hands to greet the owner of the tour boat company I’d come to interview to work on. The large blue letters of the advertisement I’d seen online were etched into my retinas eternally: “Now hiring deckhands. No experience required!” My lifelong dream had been to follow in the footsteps of my elders, who served the oceans as sailors and shipbuilders. The ocean echoed in every aspect of my being, from my seaside hometown to the salt that seemed to cling to everything around me. I knew I needed water to fulfill a part of me that was deeper than the Mariana Trench itself. I finally gave in to what seemed like impractical dreams for a practical lady, and sought a position as a stewardess; an easy way for a woman to find herself working on a ship. After all, what good could I possibly be there besides serving drinks and washing linens? What I was offered instead was a chance to make my mark in a part of the maritime industry that usually preferred testosterone instead. I signed my name on the tax documents, hands still trembling with a nervous excitement at the offer to become a deckhand. I’ll never forget those first two weeks. Our entire crew, aside from myself, identified as male. Some of those men became lifelong friends; others became lessons in perseverance. I began with skills so frustratingly foreign to me that they festered under my skin until I mastered them. Eventually, my hands started remembering knots, my eyes tracked the clouds with ease, and my heart knew the sea with such reverent intimacy. I had spent countless 12-hour shifts raising sails, scrubbing salt from the decks, and damning the wind for its disobedience. I started that journey with little knowledge of the sea, let alone how to navigate her. Looking back, I know now that this lack of knowledge was something easily rectified with learning.

What I wasn't expecting to struggle with was the way salt and misogyny like to mix. 

“You used to be nice, you know,” he’d said to me with distaste, after I failed to smile at his unwarranted touch. The words were like venom spit in my face, summoning the metallic taste of anger in my mouth. My jaw was already tight because I’d learned to keep it that way in fear of my neutral guise faltering. Had I been? I’d asked myself thoughtfully. I looked back on my 4 years at sea, at my position now as the Chief Mate of our ship, and questioned myself intently. Sea spray launched itself over the metal railing of our boat, kissing my cheeks with salty mist and snapping me from my thoughts. It was the ocean’s way of saying, “FUCK. That.” I remember smiling to myself at the sea’s declaration.

No, I hadn’t been nice. I’d been scared. I’d been timid. I’d been lacking confidence in my abilities not just as a mariner, but also as a woman.

And I’d gotten over that; it was hard not to after walking on beams high in the air, gripping the halyards as you swayed back and forth. I reveled in the stability I maintained amidst instability. It was hard not to get over my fear when I’d spent hours underway navigating the Elizabeth River, and climbed countless times down the side of a moving ship on a rescue ladder. I’ll never forget the warmth the cold metal ladder brought me the first time I’d successfully performed a rescue drill. It was hard not to get over my fear after the first time I’d had to tell a man to keep his hands to himself. At that moment, my blood stopped running cold in the face of fear and began to boil instead.

The hardest part of my career was never tying intricate knots, securing boats during storms, taking the tests for my Captain’s license, or traveling 15 hours from home to practice putting out ship fires in full dress down and an oxygen tank. The day I held my Captain’s license in my hands, the blood red cover and metallic gold lettering winking at me in the light with approval, I knew that the hardest part wasn’t learning how to navigate across oceans with just a chart, pencil, compass, and ruler. The hardest part was saying “no.” Saying no to wandering hands, to sexual remarks, to hungry eyes, and to the thought that I might have just been there because someone wanted my body. Saying no with conviction and confidence, instead of quietly whispering it with a trembling voice. The hardest part was finding my voice and using it like a weapon against misogyny, and making men waver like they thought I would in their wake. I write this not as an ode to aggression, regret of my career, or a hatred for men. It’s instead an exaltation of the salt that held my head above water as I learned to swim. Salt laid the foundation for everything that made me a woman and drowned the men who tried to anchor me. It made me ask myself, “Am I just here because someone thought I was pretty?” And then it told me, “No, you’re here because you know the value of the water that keeps you afloat.” Salt showed me that being a sailor was in my blood, that it had been my destiny while I tossed and turned in my mother’s womb, waiting for me to realize it as I searched for meaning in life.

Salt is all the mermaids who were tied just below the bowsprit, when they should have been placed at the helm instead. For those that need to hear it, I’ll remind you that salt and misogyny do mix;  but not at the willingness of the sea. And no longer at the willingness of me.