All aboard the love boat! Below Deck Sailing Yacht star Gabriela Barragan confirmed that she and Below Deck season 9 alum Wes O’Dell are in a relationship.
“Wes and I are dating. We’ve been dating for a couple of months,” Barragan, 34, told the “Gangplank Report” podcast on Tuesday, April 26.
She continued, “It was really cute. In St. Thomas, they wear these bangle bracelets. It has like a little horseshoe on it — or like a hook. And if it’s facing outward, it means you’re open. And if it’s facing the other way, it means that you’re taken. So when he gave me the bracelet, he put it on me with the horseshoe, meaning closed. And I looked at him like, ‘Oh!’ And he’s like, ‘Yeah.’ I was like, ‘Awww, that’s so cute.’”
The Caribbean Hook bracelet was the gift that cemented their status as girlfriend and boyfriend, and the former second stewardess said she’d never been in a relationship like this before.
“Going back to like surrounding yourself with good people, I don’t think I’ve had a boyfriend quite as kind and patient and loving as Wes,” she explained. “So it’s new for me because obviously, you guys see how chaotic I am and how intense I am. So being in a normal, healthy relationship — I’m, like, uncomfortable in normalcy, I guess.”
The deck hand also opened up about previous relationships that left her traumatized long before she and the Florida native got together. “I’ve actually been in an abusive relationship. I had to go to therapy for it afterward because my ex was a socio-narcisst and completely brainwashed me,” she revealed.
Though her traumatic experience happened before joining the show, Sailing Yacht fans saw Barragan in a less-than-ideal romance on screen. The San Diego native hooked up with first mate Gary King and even got caught in a love triangle with Ashley Marti. However, since leaving the Parsifal III, she found a more serious relationship.
While her yacht drama started airing on Bravo late last year, Barragan was already working on a sailboat with O’Dell.
“I’m the first mate on Wes’s boat,” she told Showbiz Cheat Sheet in December 2021. “He’s teaching me everything about sailing. And it’s hard. I have been so tired. I feel like such a wuss [laughs]. It’s the physical labor of being out in the sun and the salt air all day, every day, learning a bunch.”
In addition to striking up a romance, O’Dell continues to support his girlfriend in her career.
“He’s working with me, and I couldn’t appreciate it more,” Barragan gushed on the podcast on Tuesday. “Not just about the stuff about the show but just advancing my career. He’s super behind me getting my captain’s license. He’s teaching me everything he knows, and he’s super knowledgeable about sailing. It’s insane, and I just haven’t felt this supported by a partner in years. So it’s new for me, but I like it. He’s hot! So hot.”
Below Deck Sailing Yacht airs on Bravo Mondays at 8 p.m. ET.
