Her wife died and she went on a cruise. Then she met a fellow passenger who changed her life forever

By Francesca Street, CNN

(CNN) — It was 5.30 in the morning and Royal Caribbean’s Voyager of the Seas cruise ship was floating off the coast of Fiji.

American passenger Bobbi Waterman was one of only two people on the deck, gazing out at the ocean as the sky illuminated the water with amber and bronze reflections. It was a spectacular view, and Bobbi felt her spirits rise with the sun.

Bobbi didn’t know the other passenger on the deck. She didn’t even recognize them from the preceding days of the cruise. At first, the two strangers kept their distance, but as the sun continued to rise, they found themselves coming together to share the moment. They both enthused about the view, at the tranquility of the empty ship deck in the early hours of the morning and at the beauty of Fiji.

It was 2013. Bobbi, who is a trans woman, was still male-presenting at the time. She was in her 50s, living in Florida, and had recently lost her wife of 14 years to breast cancer. Every day was a struggle through the grief. Bobbi wanted to live her life to the fullest — she knew that’s what her late wife would have wanted too — but she was also navigating an internal struggle with her gender identity. She really wasn’t sure what the future held.

Bobbi didn’t share all of this with the other sunrise watcher. They didn’t even talk much at first. But once the fellow passenger introduced themselves as Tam Asbury, from Australia, and started making conversation, Bobbi unexpectedly found herself talking to Tam about her recent loss.

“We talked for about three hours,” Bobbi tells CNN Travel today. “Bonding over grief, because I had lost my wife and Tam had experience in grief and losing people. So we just talked for a while. Tam is very empathetic — they started crying — and that, to me, was a sign Tam had a big heart.”

Tam, who is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, was also going through a difficult time. When Bobbi and Tam met, Tam, then in their forties, was in the middle of an acrimonious separation from their husband.

“I’d bought 10 acres of land and was going to build a tiny house and live on there with dogs and donkeys and ducks,” Tam tells CNN Travel. “I wasn’t ever contemplating another relationship. I was happy being on my own.”

Tam’s two teenage daughters were on the brink of adulthood and were now old enough to stay home alone, so the cruise around the South Pacific was Tam’s first vacation without kids in tow. For Tam, this was both exciting and bittersweet. They were looking forward to the future, but still unpacking the complexities of the disintegrating marriage.

Tam discussed some of these complicated feelings with Bobbi that day, and listened as Bobbi talked about her grief, her late wife’s illness. The two strangers shared, empathized and connected with one another.

As dawn finally broke, Bobbi and Tam left the deck and went their separate ways. As they walked in opposite directions, they each felt grateful that they’d run into each other. It felt like a significant meeting.

But neither Bobbi nor Tam could have anticipated just how significant this meeting would prove to be.

Rocket science

After their sunrise bonding moment, Bobbi and Tam kept running into each other on the cruise ship, “sometimes accidentally, sometimes on purpose,” as Bobbi puts it.

Some days, they’d just find themselves in the same place at the same time and start chatting. Other times, they’d arrange to eat dinner together or grab a drink on the pool deck.

“We continued to hang out,” Bobbi says. “I thought I’d made a new friend.”

The two passengers talked about everything and anything — but one thing Bobbi downplayed in their conversations was her job and her workplace. Then, one day, one of the other passengers mentioned to Tam, in passing, that Bobbi was a rocket scientist at NASA. Tam couldn’t believe Bobbi hadn’t dropped this information into their conversation on day one.

But when Tam reflected on it, they decided this was illustrative of Bobbi’s humility and natural modesty.

“I was like, ‘If I was a rocket scientist, I would lead with that in conversation,’” says Tam, laughing. “But Bobbi didn’t.”

At the end of the 10-day cruise, Tam disembarked thinking how Bobbi was very different from their ex-husband.

“Bobbi showed her emotions, talking about losing her wife, and she seemed intelligent,” says Tam.

Tam was also grateful for their deep, interesting conversations.

“I like people with brains, and it was nice to talk to someone you could converse with,” they say.

As for Bobbi, she also felt thankful that Tam had entered her life and had quickly become “somebody I could talk to.”

Before Tam returned to their kids in Melbourne, Australia, and Bobbi flew back to her home in Florida, the two swapped social media details and email addresses.

While they both acknowledged that their connection ran deep, neither expected it to turn into anything beyond a long distance friendship. The question of romance had hung over all their interactions, but neither was looking for love.

“At the time, friendship was fine,” says Tam. “At that point in my life, I was not ready to have a relationship.”

“And I was not ready to move on,” says Bobbi. “I still had this black spot in my head, in my brain, from losing my wife and not really seeing a future yet of what I was going to do. It was just nice to have somebody to talk to.”

A long-distance connection

Almost 1,000 miles apart, Tam and Bobbi stayed in touch via instant messages and social media updates. Before long, they were enjoying regular video calls via Skype. Rather than seeing their friendship dwindling, they surprised themselves by growing closer and closer.

When summer 2014 rolled around, Bobbi booked another trip. This time, she opted for a river cruise, traveling from Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, to Budapest, Hungary, with various stops in European cities.

Bobbi intended to travel solo. But as the cruise start date grew ever closer, Bobbi found herself thinking more and more about Tam, wondering about their connection. One day, on a whim, Bobbi decided to ask Tam if they wanted to join her.

Tam didn’t say yes right away, deciding to talk it over with their daughters.

“I spoke to both of my girls,” says Tam. “I said, ‘This is what happened. We’ve become friends. They’ve invited me here. What do you think I should do?’”

Tam’s youngest daughter, who’d always wanted to go to Paris, said she was fine with Tam embarking on a trip to Europe — so long as Tam didn’t go to Paris without her.

Tam’s oldest daughter also supported the idea — with the caveat that the cruise couldn’t involve London, as that was on her own personal bucket list.

“And I’m like, ‘Okay, well the cruise isn’t going to either of those places,’” recalls Tam. “So they said, ‘Okay, you should do it.’ And then I booked the flights and went to Amsterdam to meet Bobbi.”

While Tam had their daughters’ approval, and Bobbi and Tam had grown close over a year of communicating via social media, Tam was still a little apprehensive about the trip. Still, while Tam had never visited Europe before, they had a couple of old friends who lived there. Tam contacted them, explaining the situation and making back up arrangements “just in case things didn’t go to plan.”

Bobbi was also a “little worried” about seeing Tam again. But when the two were reunited at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, they were both overwhelmed with excitement. Their connection felt natural and easy.

And as the cruise wound around Northern Europe’s waterways, Bobbi and Tam bonded further.

“We enjoyed spending our time together,” recalls Bobbi.

But they still didn’t discuss romance.

“My future wasn’t really clear to me yet,” says Bobbi. “I was still grieving.”

Meanwhile, other cruise passengers kept commenting how Bobbi and Tam made such a good couple, asking when they were getting married.

“I was not ready for that type of conversation,” says Bobbi. “Tam was not ready yet either.”

Bobbi was navigating grief, and unsure about dating again. Meanwhile for Tam, the idea of intertwining their life with someone again was equally daunting — especially someone they were still getting to know, who lived on the other side of the world.

A ‘turning point’

Post-cruise, Bobbi came face-to-face with some complicated family dynamics back in the US. Her burgeoning connection with Tam took a back seat for a couple of months as she navigated these family issues.

“I had to deal with all of that stuff,” says Bobbi. “But Tam also helped me through it. And after talking with Tam, by the time I was ready, I was seeing a path.”

Bobbi says this period was a “turning point.” She became increasingly sure that Tam was her future.

“So I said to Tam, ‘I’d like to come visit you and spend time in Australia and meet your family and see where you live, and how you live,’” recalls Bobbi.

Tam told Bobbi that they’d love that. And so, in mid-2015, Bobbi arrived in Australia, greeted by Tam at Melbourne Airport.

While Bobbi had visited Australia when she was younger, she’d only really seen Sydney. She was excited to see more of the country — and see things through Tam’s eyes.

“I was excited and happy to show Bobbi my country,” says Tam.

Tam’s family welcomed Bobbi too. There was some light ribbing and teasing, but they liked Bobbi and saw how happy she made Tam.

“My oldest daughter was excited that Bobbi worked at NASA,” says Tam. “Meeting the family went off very well, some family members jokingly suggested Bobbi may be the janitor at NASA.”

During Tam’s month in Australia, Tam and Bobbi also took a cruise, traveling from Sydney to Perth. They also enjoyed several days visiting New Zealand.

For Bobbi and Tam, this time together was special. Bobbi’s trip to Australia cemented Bobbi and Tam’s status as a couple.

“Now I had a vision of the future,” says Bobbi. “I knew that I wanted to have a relationship with Tam, that I wanted something longer term.”

A new chapter

Post-Australia, Bobbi and Tam’s conversations took on a slightly different tone. On long video calls, they started discussing the future, and what a shared life might look like, together. One time, Tam sent Bobbi a link to a vintage ring on eBay, mentioning that if Bobbi ever decided to propose, that was the ring she wanted.

The following year, in the summer of 2016, Tam came to the US to visit Bobbi for an extended three-month stint. During this trip, Tam met Bobbi’s family in Connecticut, and the couple also went to Alaska on a cruise with some of Bobbi’s close family members.

The couple also enjoyed downtime together in Bobbi’s hometown in Florida, and Bobbi enjoyed showing Tam her favorite spots in the city.

Toward the end of Tam’s trip, Bobbi took Tam to a park near where she lived. It was just the two of them, walking hand in hand.

“It’s a beautiful park,” says Bobbi. “And that day there were all these dragonflies flying around reeds in the water.”

Tam was taking photos of the dragonflies, when Bobbi suddenly turned to them.

“I said, ‘You know why all the dragonflies are here? They want to witness something,’” recalls Bobbi.

A few months earlier, while on a business trip in Boulder, Colorado, Bobbi had wandered into a local boutique and spotted a heart shaped stone, engraved with the words “marry me.” Bobbi instinctively knew this would resonate with Tam, and purchased the stone right away.

Now, standing in the park in Florida, Bobbi asked Tam to stretch out their hand. Tam complied.

“And then I gave Tam the little stone in their hand that said, ‘marry me.’ And they said, ‘Yes,’” recalls Bobbi.

“I cried,” says Tam. “Bobbi took me by surprise.”

Tam’s were happy tears. Bobbi felt her eyes brim up too. The couple continued to stand together in the park, watching the dragonflies, arms around each other.

A new chapter together

Bobbi and Tam planned their wedding day for the summer of 2017, inviting friends, family and loved ones to gather with them on a beach in Hawaii.

The lead-up to the wedding was a little stressful, as there were some question marks surrounding Tam’s US residency visa approval. In the end, the paperwork didn’t come together in time, but Tam and Bobbi continued with their beachside celebrations. Eventually, the documents came through and Bobbi and Tam’s legal marriage took place at a Florida courthouse later that year. Tam took Bobbi’s last name, becoming Tam Waterman.

Prior to the wedding, Bobbi and Tam talked extensively about where they might live. While Bobbi was very open to moving to Australia, her job at NASA tied her to the US, so she and Tam decided to base themselves in Florida for the foreseeable future.

While Tam was thrilled at the prospect of marrying Bobbi, they were less excited about the idea of packing up their life in Australia and moving to the US.

Relocating abroad wasn’t something Tam had ever dreamed of — they are proud to be Australian and loved living there. Tam also had misgivings about the political climate and culture in the US.

“If you had told me before I met Bobby, ‘You’re going to move to America,’ I’d have laughed at you,” says Tam, who was quickly frustrated by Americans throwing around phrases like the “American Dream.”

“They say ‘You moved here because it’s better than where you were.’ And I’m like, ‘No. That’s not why I moved to America, definitely not why,’” says Tam.

Despite Tam’s mixed feelings about the US, they were excited to share life with Bobbi.

“Since I had visited a couple of times this felt like a home,” says Tam of Florida. “And I was happy to be with Bobbi all the time.”

Tam’s oldest daughter was settled in Australia, so she stayed there. But Tam’s youngest daughter relocated and moved into Bobbi’s Florida home too.

Around this time, Bobbi started taking steps toward adopting Tam’s youngest daughter.

“It was important to let her know she was family here,” says Bobbi. “I always tried to make it as easy as I could, because I knew how hard it was for them to uproot their lives and come all the way across the world.”

Living authentically

Bobbi, Tam and their daughter soon settled into life as a family unit in Florida.

For Tam and Bobbi, being together 24/7 was thrilling. There were no more airport goodbyes, no more navigating 16-hour time differences — they supported each other, made each other laugh, made travel plans together,

But with the relationship solid, and Tam’s US visa status settled, Bobbi found herself thinking more and more about her gender identity.

“I had mentioned to Tam that there were parts of me that felt more right to be a woman probably in the 2015 time frame,” says Bobbi. “Then by 2018, we had a deep conversation about being a woman. Tam always thought it was obvious that I was the female of the relationship.”

Tam was supportive, encouraging Bobbi to live authentically. But it wasn’t until summer 2023 — four years after she retired from NASA — that Bobbi came out as a trans woman to her wider circle.

“We were sitting around the table one night — me and Tam and our daughter — and we were talking about the lottery. What would we want to do if we won Powerball? If we came into all this money, what would we want to do? What vacations would you go on? Where would you want to live?”

The conversation was jovial, lighthearted. But then Bobbi got more serious.

“I said, ‘Well, if we won a lot of money, do you think I’d be okay transitioning to female?’” Bobbi recalls.

She didn’t know what reaction to expect, but Tam and their daughter didn’t skip a beat.

“They’re like, ‘Why would you have to win a lot of money to do that? If you feel that you are female, just be female, just transition.’”

Tam immediately went upstairs to get some clothes that Bobbi could try on, while the couple’s daughter helped Bobbi do her make-up.

“They were very, very supportive,” says Bobbi.

A few months later, in July 2023, Bobbi recorded a video she called “Life Update, Coming Out” and posted it to YouTube. She’d already started uploading vlogs of her travels with Tam, and a video seemed like the natural way to share the news.

In the video, Bobbi talked about considering herself as “non-binary, gender fluid” for several years, and that she’d looked into transitioning to female a few times, but “convinced myself that I was too old to start this process.”

But, said Bobbi in July 2023, looking directly at the camera, she’d now decided to be her “true self.”

“I’ve decided that I’m going to live my life as a woman,” she said.

Bobbi shared the video on her social media accounts. She was struck by how many people from all aspects of life reached out with words of support.

“It was very heartwarming,” says Bobbi.

Most of Bobbi’s loved ones were encouraging.

“Both of our girls are very, very supportive,” says Tam. “They both accept Bobbi for who she is.”

Bobbi also has a stepdaughter and stepgranddaughters from her first marriage. While she’s not close with her stepdaughter, she says her stepgranddaughters have always been “very supportive.”

Throughout it all, her biggest champion was Tam, who’d always encouraged Bobbi to be her authentic self, emphasizing they’d always love her.

For Bobbi, this only further underlined what she considered Tam’s greatest quality: “their heart, empathic soul.”

“I’m much happier now, being able to live my life who I really am,” reflects Bobbi. “I kept it inside for many, many years. And it wasn’t until I had the relationship with Tam that I felt comfortable enough to talk about these things and realize that, if this is who I am, I should live my life as who I am, and be myself.”

A nine-month cruise

As Bobbi started living authentically in 2023, she and Tam also started preparing for the trip of a lifetime.

The couple love to travel together and — fittingly, given how they met — particularly enjoy exploring the world via cruise travel.

So when they learned about Royal Caribbean’s Ultimate World Cruise, a nine-month long world cruise setting sail in December 2023, the couple jumped at the chance. It seemed like the perfect way to celebrate Bobbi’s retirement and the next chapter of their life.

“When I was very young, I had a globe — in fact I still have this globe — and I would sit there and stare at it, and look at all these countries that I wanted to visit,” says Bobbi. “The nine-month world cruise hit most of them.”

When the Ultimate World Cruise set sail in December 2023, the voyage quickly gained a lot of traction on social media, with several passengers on board posting viral TikToks about their experiences on board.

While Bobbi and Tam were into YouTube, they were a little late to world cruise TikTok. But by February 2024, they were posting regular dispatches about their experiences at sea under the handle @tam.and.bobbi, as well as Instagram updates under @tamandbobbiadventures.

The couple’s growing social media presence came with both positive and not-so-positive feedback. While the hate could be disheartening, Bobbi and Tam were determined to not let naysayers impact their travels. They were enjoying an incredible travel experience, and they wanted to share it with the world.

Plus, there were many supportive comments and messages that counteracted the negativity.

“We’d get messages in our inbox and talk to people who were like, ‘My granddaughter’s trans, or my child is trans, or my trans partner is willing to travel now, because you’ve made it possible,’” says Tam.

“People would say, ‘You’ve shown us it’s possible as a trans couple, to go explore the world and see sites and travel,’” adds Bobbi. “Being able to show that’s okay to people that were scared and afraid to do that has been very meaningful. Those are the messages that kind of wrench at your heart, and you’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is so beautiful. I’m so glad I was able to do this.’”

The nine-month cruise was also meaningful because it was “truly once-in-a-lifetime, just an amazing experience,” as Bobbi describes it.

A particularly memorable moment for Bobbi and Tam was the ship’s stint in Antarctica.

“It was unreal,” says Bobbi. “Serene, quiet, zen-like. The water was glass, there were icebergs and whales and penguins everywhere.”

Another highlight was when Tam’s oldest daughter, who still lives in Australia, boarded the cruise and joined Tam and Bobbi for the voyage between Brisbane and Hong Kong.

This was especially meaningful because there was a period during the pandemic where the couple couldn’t see her because of Australia and US Covid rules.

The Ultimate World Cruise came to an end in September 2024, and Bobbi and Tam are already planning their next travels. They hope to explore more of the US, including the country’s national parks. They’ve got a couple more cruises on the calendar and are also daydreaming about a big trip to Vietnam.

Bobbi also recently got a new passport, which she’s excited to take on her next trip.

“That was the hardest thing on the world cruise, because my passport was my old name and my old gender. And so I was presenting, as me, as who I am, but my passport said I was somebody else,” explains Bobbi.

Fortunately this discrepancy didn’t cause any particular issues for Bobbi during the nine-month cruise. There were five countries on the cruise itinerary that Bobbi and Tam skipped because of anti-trans and LGBTQ+ laws, but the couple say they felt largely welcomed in most places.

“And now, if I have a passport that reflects who I am, when we travel in the future, that will make it much easier, because you don’t have to explain that extra step in there,” says Bobbi. “The passport matches who I am.”

As well as continuing to explore the globe, Bobbi and Tam are also considering the possibility of relocating to somewhere outside the US in the future.

Now that Bobbi’s retired, living in Australia is back on the table, although nothing’s set in stone yet. Bobbi and Tam have two dogs that they’d want to bring with them, so they have to consider their needs. Their short list of potential future homes also includes the Caribbean island of Grenada, as well as Spain and Portugal.

Reflecting on a life together

While Tam and Bobbi were on their nine-month world cruise, they enjoyed many sunrises and sunsets together. As they watched the sun break over the ocean, they often found themselves reflecting on that first sunrise they watched together, off the coast of Fiji, more than a decade ago.

Tam marveled at the fact they came together, despite “literally living half a world apart.” They’re grateful that they met Bobbi a little later in life, when their priorities were clearer.

“My first marriage was not good,” Tam says. “But when you’ve had a storm, you can see the rainbow. You need the rain for the rainbow, and I think you appreciate even more what you have.”

As for Bobbi, she found herself thinking about the deep grief she went through, and the unexpected life and happiness that waited with Tam on the other side.

“I like to think that the spirit of my first wife and other spirits helped us meet,” Bobbi says today. “How else would we both meet on deck 12, at 5.30 in the morning, sailing into Fiji, from different sides of the world? The odds of that happening are astronomical, and there’s got to be a reason we met and I think it was, there was some help pushing us together.”

“Traveling not only fills your soul, it is the only thing you can buy that makes you richer,” she adds. “Also, your soulmate may not be in your home town or state or country, your soulmate may be on the other side of the planet waiting for you to find each other.”

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