The women both say they never want to see the sea again, and yet it is also where they feel safest, especially now, as the couple face a seventh year of not knowing whether Canada will ever grant the Elena full citizenship. The mammoth voyage almost killed them, they say yet as much as the sea and its storms have proved perilous, the sea has also proven to be Elena and Meg’s most secure, known home ever since. Twelve years ago, the women say they traveled 15,000 miles across the oceans on their boat, which they later called Boadicea, “the vessel of freedom” (its real name is different, and they asked me not to use it because 'it is like giving people your address,' said Elena).
A lesbian couple confronting homophobia, falling in love, and sailing across storm-tossed, death-threatening oceans to be together sounds like the plot of a stirring film-and that is exactly what the Russian Elena Ivanova (not her real surname) and her Canadian partner Meg Stone hope their story will become.Ī more complex question is whether they will ever escape the high seas-and how much they want to.
