I started to pull on my shorts next morning. We were a little late getting up; not surprising. I had planned to have breakfast before my shower.

“No way, I want to spend the day with the girl I slept with last night”, Lisa was just dragging herself out of bed.

I shaved, carefully, despite being late as I could not risk a cut! My beard was very light in colour and density and I could have delayed shaving in male mode, but definitely not as a girl!

Lisa was already dressed when I finished shaving; like me she was planning to shower later. She helped me into my bra and dress, sat me down and quickly applied some makeup and combed my hair. The new cut made it much easier to handle.

The rest of the gang were already having breakfast when we got to the dining room; they had occupied a table for 6 and kept some seats for us. Maria looked at us and smiled; there’s something about the way a couple act that makes it clear that they are more than friends and she had picked up on this immediately. The guys seemed a little surprised that I was still dressed as a girl; was this not dragging our “prank” out a bit? They had to leave after about 10 minutes as their course was starting, leaving Lisa, Maria and myself at the table. We couldn’t laze around as we had booked a guide to take us on a walking tour; he was due to meet us at the hotel at 10am. We finished breakfast and went back to our rooms to get ready. I stepped into the shower, had just got the water right, when Lisa stepped in beside me.

“Save water, shower with a friend”, she said, quoting what had become a type of catchphrase in the UK and Ireland at the time. I can’t recall its’ origin.

We quickly got ready, Lisa sorting out my makeup and hair. Back down in the lobby just before 10am, Maria was already chatting with the guide and introduced us as Lisa and Jasmine. We headed off, me wearing my onboard shoes (which I couldn’t wear again on the yacht) with my sandals in my bag. We did the classical sites, which I had already visited with the Greek class, but enjoyed all the more now as a girl, walking around with girls. My voice was my main problem; I had to work to try to keep it soft. We stopped for a coffee mid-way and Lisa had to divert me when I inadvertently started towards the men’s toilet!

The tour finished and the guide joined us for a late lunch at 2pm. We finished at 3pm, said goodbye to the guide, who kissed all 3 of us on the cheek, and headed back towards the shopping streets. Maria went to split off,

“I’ll leave you two lovebirds to wander around alone”.

Both Lisa and I spoke together and persuaded her to stay with us. She wasn’t displeased, her offer had been more out of politeness. She did note that we hadn’t denied being “lovebirds”; it was obvious as we had linked each other on the tour. Girls can do this as friends without causing comment, and only Maria and Lisa knew that I wasn’t a girl… or was I.

I have since heard a joke about the difference between a transvestite and a transgirl; the punch line is “about two years”. I had moved from a desire to wear skirts to being really comfortable passing as a girl in the space of 3 weeks. When I left home, I would never have thought that in about five weeks I would be walking about in a dress with two pretty girl friends. Neither did I think that I would be sleeping with a self-declared lesbian. I was never a macho type. Other than swimming and some track work, I had avoided the tougher sports at school and was much happier playing table tennis or chess than Gaelic football, which was a form of religion in our school. I was never attracted to men; I adored girls, even as I envied them their pretty dresses and skirts. Was I a lesbian? Ireland was just beginning to emerge from the dark ages of Catholic church domination, even repression, but, having attended a Catholic boarding school, I still believed that homosexuality was a deviance. Never having heard to transvestitism, I guessed that it was also a deviance but of a lesser kind. I was very confused.

My clip-on earrings kept slipping off, so I removed them and put them in my bag. The girls noticed and steered me into a jeweler’s shop. About 20 minutes later I emerged with newly pierced ears and two small gold earrings, a present from Lisa. I had very little money as I had not yet been paid other than a “per-diem” allowance. Our meals and the hotel were directly paid by the Yacht charter business.

The team was due to have dinner in a rather up-market restaurant. Both Maria and Lisa had dresses in the hotel suitable for this environment; I only had my sundress which would not have been suitable, even if I hadn’t worn it around now for the better part of two days in a very warm climate. Neither had I any suitable male clothes, as I had only travelled with shorts and t-shirts. I suggested that I give it a miss, have a pizza, and meet them back in the hotel for a drink. The girls weren’t happy, but it seemed to be the obvious solution. Then, as we passed the window of a ladies boutique, Maria stopped, looked in the window, and called us back. A mannequin was outfitted in a light grey, silk-effect, A-line or flared dress, knee length, with sleeves. A high figure of drachma was crossed out by marker and half the amount written alongside. I can’t remember the figures, as the drachma exchange rate was a bit absurd. Maria was looking in her bag; I could see that she was counting her money. She started to lead us in when I stopped her.

“Maria, if you’re thinking what I’m thinking, I don’t have the money and you can’t be paying”.

“I’ll add the dress to the Yacht’s wardrobe”.

I looked blankly at her.

“We have some dresses on board to lend to guests; some girls use them from time to time, and I need to add a bigger sized one anyway”.

In we went, and the dress was available in the larger size. That’s why it was on sale; the tourist season was ending and most Greek ladies are more petit than Northern Europeans. It was new for me to go into the ladies changing room, Lisa came in with me, something that guys would never do. She helped me out of my sundress, straightened my bra and pulled the grey dress over my head. There was a zipper on the side which she closed for me. We went out and looked in the mirror with Maria and the boutique owner. Other than being a bit flat up top, the dress fitted well, the flare again disguising my lack of hips. The boutique owner wandered off and returned with a heavily padded bra. Lisa took it from her, propelled me back into the changing room, helped me out of the dress and the bra that I was wearing, and into the new one. I resisted the temptation to start anything with her in case my appreciation of her charms became obvious when we went back out!

We bought the dress and the bra, added a pair of tights and left. The girls decided that my cheap gold sandals would be OK with the dress, they were still new and I had not really worn them much. Shopping finished, we strolled back to the hotel. The guys were to meet us there and we would all walk together to the restaurant. We went to our rooms, showered, changes and Lisa did my makeup. This time, she talked me through it; she obviously thought that this was a skill that I needed to develop, but there was no time to let me practice. I also received a lesson in putting on tights, Lisa had brought a pair of white cotton gloves along and put these on to pull on her tights.

“Less chance of snagging them with your nails”.

I followed suit, albeit rather clumsily, and eventually got the tights on and straight. It felt good but, given the heat, I would have preferred stockings! Both dressed, we looked in the mirror together, both beaming. Lisa had a small cassette type camera with which she took an unaimed picture of the mirror. We wouldn’t find out how it came out until Lisa got the film developed when the 24 shots had all been used. We had about 5 minutes and I turned to kiss Lisa. She stopped me; we would ruin our lipstick!

Again, stepping out of the bedroom and closing the door behind me gave me a kind of thrill, a combination of excitement, anxiety and ecstasy. The anxiety was dampened because I was with Lisa, meeting a group who now knew me and apparently accepted me in my new persona. I have occasionally wondered how it must be for other transgirls, who have to dress without female help, and go out alone for a first time, some time. In retrospect, I had it easy. We met the gang in the bar, Maria was already there with George and possibly had told them what to expect as no one passed comment. Dimitri even said, pleasantly,

“Hi Jasmine, nice to see you again.”

We went to the restaurant and again I practiced keeping my voice soft, and eating slowly, taking smaller amounts on my fork and generally trying to be ladylike. I took it easy on the wine; I couldn’t afford to get tipsy and anyway, I had to ensure that I was in good shape for when we got back to the hotel later that night. After the main course, Lisa excused herself to go to the ladies’ room and nodded to me to go with her. She had serious empathy and realized that I would not have felt comfortable to go on my own in a crowded establishment where there would be other women present. We went in, occupied a stall each and I was most careful not to make noise; it would be a dead giveaway. Lisa waited for me, we washed our hands and she touched up my and her lipsticks and we rejoined the gang.

George had a somewhat serious look on his face as we returned. The three sailors were discussing the weather forecast for our trip to Heraklion, Maria was listening intently. The forecast, George explained, was marginal. We would not do the trip if we had guests on board as it was likely to be a rough ride, Force 7 on the starboard bow for much of the trip. Maybe the forecast would change in the intervening day, we still had one day left in port, but that could also be for the worse. Maria decided that we would go back on board the following day and stow everything in anticipation of heavy weather. The sailors still had a half day of their course to go but would join us from midday on.

Decision made, we ordered dessert and coffee and, as tomorrow would be a working day, headed back to the hotel for a reasonably early night.

“Do try to get a good night’s sleep”, Maria joked as we all split up to go to our rooms.

Lisa and I postponed the sleep bit for a while and afterwards, lying snuggled against her back with my arm around her, I said…

“I’m very confused Lisa. I don’t think that I’ve ever been happier than these last few weeks, and these last two days especially… I’ve really enjoyed being a girl with you and Maria… and here we are together… and you’re lesbian… what am I?”

She turned around so that we were lying face to face, smiled and said,

“You’re like me; you’re a lesbian too!”

And that is almost exactly what I was thinking. I wanted this life to continue indefinitely, but I was scheduled to return to Ireland in three weeks to take up a college place. This would be the safe, predictable, boring and correct thing to do. If I left, would I ever see Lisa again? Travel back then was much more expensive and difficult than now, so probably not. Also, there was simply no way to pursue this “lifestyle” in Ireland. If a “scene” existed, it could only be in Dublin and I had applied for college in Galway, a very nice, provincial city, but small and rather conservative.

We were up early the following morning and Lisa insisted that I wear my sundress back to the boat. What the hell, everybody except Greg and Chef had already seen me, and we both wanted to continue the illusion for as long as possible. We finished breakfast, returned to our rooms, packed and met Maria in the lobby where she checked us all out with a company credit card. Lisa drove the runabout, a Renault 4, back to the marina; Maria didn’t particularly like to drive and I was not comfortable with driving on the “wrong” side of the road. We parked up and went on board. I met some workmen as I headed to our cabin but didn’t see Greg; he was probably up to his ears in bits of generator or something in the engine room. We changed into t-shirts and shorts and set about methodically stowing everything that we thought could move. This was easier than it sounds; boats are generally designed for this and items such as glasses and cups slot into special slots in drawers to keep them safe. To be sure, we wrapped every item in a sheet of kitchen paper to soften any impact and reduce movement. Plates were interleaved with kitchen paper, drawers were locked, vases removed from tables… the list goes on. Maria both worked and supervised, a case of all hands on deck!

Chef hadn’t arrived back yet so Lisa took the car and got pizza for lunch for the 4 crew on board, Greg and us three “girls”. We were tucking in at the crew table in the galley when Greg joined us. He was a little hassled as he had to complete the generator job, secure the engine room and check the bilge pumps before we sailed. He did notice my nail varnish, red to match my sundress, and my makeup. He also noticed that Lisa and I were now apparently closer that heretofore… on leaving to go back to work he just said,

“See you girls later.”

I didn’t mind; I rather liked being called a girl not, even if a little sarcastically.

The sailors arrived back soon after we had finished lunch, they had lunched at the hotel and quickly started to check and stow everything on deck. By 6pm we were all finished, and Chef had just arrived back. We were going ashore for a meal at a local restaurant when George called us all to the bridge for a briefing. In turn Maria, Greg, Jorge and Dimitri confirmed that they were happy that their respective areas were rigged for heavy weather. Chef would do his area after dinner ashore, and food thereafter would be fairly basic, sandwiches, soup, coffee, and some cereal, yogurt and fruit for breakfast.

George explained the cast-off procedure. Because of the work on the generator, we were alongside the pontoon as opposed to the usual stern-to practice in the Mediterranean. This was a problem as the wind was blowing us onto the pontoon, and George reckoned that it would be too strong for the trusters alone to deal with. The plan was to cast off, leaving a strong line from our bow, back to the pontoon approximately midship. This was called a “spring”. The port engine would go ahead, the starboard engine astern, to push the bow against the pontoon and the stern would move out, with the stern truster helping out. Once the stern was well out, both engines would go astern for a few seconds to bring the yacht into clear water, then the starboard engine would go ahead to pivot the boat to port before it headed out from the marina. Immediately both the engines went astern, it would be possible to cast off the spring which would be recovered by marina staff; George didn’t want it being pulled into a maneuvering boat in case it fouled the propellors. We were each given a role; mine was at the stern with a hand-held radio to call out the distance remaining as the boat went astern and look out for hazards generally. I would also cast off the stern line, to be collected by the shore crew, on George’s radio command.

George then continued with the safety briefing. Life jackets were to be worn at all times except in our cabins. Movement around was to be limited and, once underway, nobody was to go on deck without George’s permission or without a lifeline. We had an option of being on the bridge, there was plenty of room as guests were often to be found there when underway, or being in our cabins. The bridge would give us some visibility which was a partial antidote to sea sickness, however our cabins were lower down and amidships, so we would experience less motion. Maria passed out some sea-sickness tablets which we should take immediately on waking as they took some time to become effective.

Briefing complete, we headed off for dinner, a quiet affair, and quickly off to bed. Lisa slid in beside me on the lower bunk and we eventually went to sleep. We woke at 4:30am, took our sea-sickness tablets, quickly completed our ablutions, had a quiet breakfast, got our life jackets and got ready for the off. For the first time we were wearing “foulies”, waterproof gear, as the wind was already quite strong. The engines were already running, and shore power and water were being disconnected as I made my way aft. I was nervous as I didn’t want to mess up my simple tasks in this very difficult maneuver. The radio crackled…

“Stand by on the lines”.

There were two men on the pontoon. One walked to the line from our bow to the midship’s point on the pontoon, gave a thumbs up, and resumed his place at the bow line. The wind was slightly astern so the bow line went first.

“Cast off forward”.

“Forward line clear”.

“Cast off stern”.

I undid the line from the cleat and slipped it through the cutout in the side, the shoreman quickly pulled it in. I pressed the button (PTT) on the radio.

“Stern line clear”.

The engines rumbled and the stern moved out, water swirling around us.

“Going astern”.

The boat moved backwards, with a distinctive drift of the stern back towards the pontoon.

"Cast off spring."

"Spring clear."

I pressed the PTT,

“Thirty meters, twenty meters, ten meters”.

The engine rumbles grew louder and the water foamed at our stern. At the stern, it looked to me that the stern was moving back onto the pontoon, but I knew from our briefing that the starboard engine was now going ahead and the bow was swinging out. Then we were going forward, faster than normal as going slow would mean greater wind drift in proportion to our forward movement.

“Deck crew, well done, let’s get you inside and the hatch secured”.

I went up to the bridge to return the radio to its charging station, Lisa arrived in from her position on the bow where she had been helping to recover and stow the fenders. George took a quick look over his shoulder,

“Well done girls”

before quickly turning back to the helm. It looked like I was now being viewed as a girl, even though Greg, who was standing at the throttles having operated them during the maneuver, shook his head slightly but said nothing. Soon the rest of the deck crew were in, handing in radios, removing their foulies and getting back into their lifejackets. The bridge was warm, it wasn’t raining yet and visibility was good. We sat on the high guest bench at the rear of the bridge and watched as George steered the yacht out the gap in the breakwater with its red and green navigation lights. Outside the sea was much more lively and we pitched and rolled as George and Greg worked to find the right speed and trim tab position to give us the best ride. Lisa and I were, naturally, sitting close together, but I resisted any temptation to put my arm over her shoulder. Nobody had said it but instinctively we knew that we needed to keep our relationship inside our cabin or off the yacht.

Sea sickness pills can cause some people to feel drowsy, especially if not actively employed, and I decided to go below and lie down in our cabin. When Lisa said that she would do the same; Maria playfully rolled her eyes and we both headed below. The sensation in the cabin was different, the motion definitely less but with no visual references. We both slid out of our clothes, which we left on the top bunk in case we needed to dress in a hurry and wedged ourselves together in the bottom bunk. It would have been difficult to get up to much given the motion of the boat and we both fell asleep. We both got up at different times to use the heads and agreed that this was quite a difficult job in a rough sea. It wasn’t a storm; George explained later that it was at the higher end of Force 7, almost a gale, whereas a storm is defined as Force 10.

The distance from Athens to Heraklion is about 180 nautical miles, at an economical cruising speed of 9 knots about 20 hours. This trip took 30 hours. Lisa and I spent most of the time together in our cabin, and talked a lot about our lives to date. Mine was pretty straightforward; hers more complicated. Lisa’s father worked in the City, which I learned meant that he worked in Finance and they were quite well off. She went to a private school, did her A levels, and was to go to University. But she hadn’t been happy at school; she felt that she didn’t fit in and wanted to take some time off before going to college. Her parents agreed that she could travel with a girl friend and defer university for a year; they didn’t realize that girl friend meant girlfriend. By the time they arrived in Greece, having “done" Spain and Italy, that relationship was strained. When Lisa secured a short term job on the Yacht, her now-ex-girlfriend went back to the UK. That should have been that, but the disgruntled ex-partner told her parents about the relationship, probably in an attempt to shock them. Her parents spoke to, or rather accosted, Lisa’s parents on the basis that their perverted daughter (Lisa) had corrupted their precious petal. A telegram, a difficult telephone conversation, and a stern and unkind letter from her parents convinced Lisa that the parental relationship was broken and she stayed in Greece and with the Yacht.

“They had been delighted that I was travelling with a girl and so worried that I’d get pregnant or run off with a man. Now they’d probably be delighted to know that I’m sleeping with one… or at least someone who normally presents as one!”

“I don’t think that they’d be very happy with me, especially if I turned up in the sundress… way too short!”

“You’d be ok in the grey dress; it looks elegant on you.”

We lapsed into silence for a while. The boat pitched, rocked and rolled…

“I don’t want to go back home”, I finally said.

“How would it work?” Lisa responded. “I don’t want you to go home either, but how long can you keep up switching between being a boy and a girl?”

“I don’t know; it’s all new to me, remember?”

“You know”, Lisa said, “I felt that you were different when we met. I wondered what you’d be like as a girl…”

“So you started to turn me into one…” I interrupted softly.

“Not like you objected!” Lisa retorted playfully. “Seriously, I felt that you weren’t like other lads, more like a girl than any other boy I’d met. And that’s why we’ve ended up together.”

“I think that you know yourself better than I know me”, I responded. “Three weeks ago I was a reasonably normal male, hiding a secret desire to wear skirts. Now I’m happy to be seen and treated as a girl… albeit a lesbian.”

“So you’re not going to let Greg or Dimitri shift you?” Lisa altered between playfulness and seriousness. Actually we both did; it was a way to handle a serious conversation and not get in too deep.

“Not my type,” I answered. “Seriously… I find the thought …”

“And do you think the same about two girls together…. about me?

“To me, that’s completely different… girls have such lovely bodies… who wouldn’t want to play with them, feel them, hug them, kiss them, be one of them…”. I was nibbling her neck and ear as I talked, or rather murmured.

Lisa reached a hand back and rubbed my leg… “You know, I think you really are a lesbian…”