Vajonny.

As previously mentioned, stews and engineers are not a match made in heaven. We don’t like them and they don’t like us. We break stuff, they have to fix it. They mess and we have to clean it. Of course, more goes into it than just that, but you get the gist. Johnny, however, is an exception. Whilst he still fits the overweight, pale, bilge-dwelling stereotype, he is neither grouchy, nor lazy, nor socially inept. He is, in fact, fucking hilarious, and lieu of how much The Joke Boat is falling apart, astoundingly chipper! Somewhat of a rocker, he plays in a band and can often be heard playing the guitar in the engine room, as he is soothed by the sound of his own voice. He probably works more hours than anyone onboard and deals with something major breaking every day. There is a special place for him in Engineer Heaven I’m convinced. Or at the very least, cold beers in hell.

Who the heck's on deck?

Ron escorted me back to the boat where I was to meet my new crew of nine– Captain, First Mate, Bosun, Deckhand, Engineer, Chef, Chief Stewardess (me), Second Stewardess and Third Stewardess.

The First Mate is from Australia and ironically is shaped just like a kangaroo; big and bottom-heavy, large flabby sack in front, hands frequently in pockets, long feet, and constantly almost getting run over by cars. That is to say, poor Aiden is vexed with intolerable gout, and is thus hindered in both speed and mobility. He is older, blonde, kind and unconfrontational, and has absolutely NO crazy in him, unlike his Aussie brethren. He loves his wife and goes home every night when we are without guests. Unfortunately however, Aiden has joined us after a somewhat relaxed career in yachting, and is not accustomed to the fast-paced, anally retentive, pedantically perfect requirements of high-end charter vessels. In my opinion, boy don’t cut the mustard. In Ava's opinion (my number two), he is like a blonde Fred Flintstone'.

Jonah the Bosun is also from that general quarter of the Earth. He is tall, built like an Olympic swimmer, and is a pathological liar by his own admittance. His humour is dry and quirky and I think that he has made me laugh at least five times. Out of all the boys, Jonah probably has the best idea of what working on a charter boat requires, but he would be doing all the extra bits alone were he to attempt it. So he keeps quiet, does his job and fills the rest of the time telling lies for his own amusement.

Peter is the junior deckhand and is as green as grass. It’s his first season in yachting and he has had the (mis)fortune of landing his arse on The Joke Boat. Petey, like Eddie the Pooh, is also a space invader deluxe, and fancies little more than a good ol’ cuddle from the girls. Of course, I never oblige. He works hard, is enthusiastic, and never complains, up until he’s just bloody had enough and then that’s that. He likes a party and a tipple, fancy rags and a young girl. We like to call him Pedo Pete, just to piss him off, which on some occasions has been enough to get him to leave the room...

You're Welcome, Kiddo.

After my extended vacation I returned home to my beautiful Spanish island and took a further two months to ‘look for work’. It was finally in April that I flew to France to meet my new boat of employment. Unlike The Good Ship where it was all fun and games, I now work on motoryacht Joke Boat, where everything is, to put it lightly, a joke.

Upon arrival at Nice Airport I was met by a grey, hunched man who looks alarmingly like Moe from the Simpsons.

Unfortunately this individual has neither Moe’s cynicism nor his wit, and can only be comparable in their taste for one thing; the bar. This is Ron, my new captain.

Ron is American and is as gung-ho as he is goofy. He has an extended upper lip, small glassy eyes, and big, white veneers that combine to make him look stupid when he smiles, which is all too often.

When he walks he leads with his head and his hips at the same time, and when he stops he seems to be half-sitting on an imaginary barstool. This makes him look like he is ready to spring into action at any given moment, although it is very apparent even upon the first meeting, that Ron isn’t capable of doing anything quickly.

Ron likes to pass on little jobs here and there until his entire workload had been successfully dispersed, and he has thus never really developed any actual skills as a captain. As a mutual acquaintance described it, “Ron will ‘one-more-thing’ you to death”. Due to his limited capabilities and his reputation of being unemployable in the States, Ron has spent the last 10 years working on little more than small bare-back charter boats (the maritime equivalent of caravanning), temping and delivering dinghies from here to there. Until he got this job that is, from a sympathetic pal.

Ron is also self unaware and has a hero complex to boot, which results in him shamelessly seeking gratification for the little that he actually does do.

‘Good thing I picked you up from the airport, hey kiddo!’ he said in the car on the way back to the boat when we’d just met.

To be clear, if he hadn’t I would have just taken a taxi from the airport and charged it back to the boat as I did with my flight, and would not have to endure being called kiddo. I smiled and nodded in agreement, and thought to myself, ‘Oh come on, it ain’t that bad, kiddo’...

Bing ba-da Bella!

Okay, so let’s start this again. Who am I and what the fuck am I on about? I am Isabelle, chief stewardess and author of this once successful blog. As promised right in the beginning, this blog was likely to be like most things that I start and never finish. But here I am again to regale you of my tales of my life at sea.

Why am I back? A couple of reasons really; firstly because my blogging ended rather abruptly when I was forced to shut it down due to my infringement of a few confidentially agreements and some trust. But mainly the confidentiality agreements. Secondly, because I am a narcissist. And thirdly, because I have moved on to a new boat and just as it was when I first moved on to The Good Ship with Captain Chutney and the likes, I am working for a turbo-dick which requires me to vent into cyber space for the sake of my sanity.

                                                *****

So after my time on The Good Ship (voluntarily) came to an end, Kay and I decided to spend a blissful week in the Caribbean partying, diving and laying on the beach, before we headed back down to the Southern Hemisphere to visit our respective families for Christmas. There I spent a further two months partying, roadtrippin’ and laying on the beach. I did plan to use much of that time writing, and were I able to get my arse off the couch, I would have told the stories of the rest of my time aboard The Good Ship and how it came to an end. I would have amused you with the story of the swinger’s charter, during which a very successful cabin sweep came up with a leather g-string and a gimp mask, both of which Kay put on her head. Or how Mini Me became an annoying little leg-humper and found herself looking for new employment before the season ended. I might even have gone as far as to recount the stories of how I no longer had any excuse to keep the peace with Gale after he discovered my blog, and how he took a special delight in inviting everyone to his wedding except me. I would have followed that up with the Leader’s plan to invite me as his plus one (before he got uninvited) and how I was thus robbed of my opportunity to upstage Gale’s bride in a white frock and get pissed at his open bar while he seethed into the sleeves of his monkey suit. I would have topped it all off with the coup de grace, of how Gale got beaten up by his wife on his wedding night, called the cops on her, and had his dearly beloved spend the night in jail. Married even shorter than Brittney Spears. But alas, I didn’t.

I did, however, get a lot of procrastinating done. Oh, and I got a great tan.

A Shitty Night Out

Our next day off was pending and the need for a new deckhand to take the watch whilst we went out and got pissed became dire. Moreover, one stupid and greedy enough to slog through the intensity of life on The Good Ship. Cue Sam.

Sam arrived at the boat shortly after we pulled into port in the South of France, bright eyed and bushy tailed. And ginger.

‘Do you smell fox’s wee?’ I whispered to Kay, and we snickered unfairly as we left the boat. For the first time ever, the crew went their separate ways for their day and a half off. Kay and a friend dropped me off at my hotel and continued up into the mountains. Mario took up a suite in the Marriot for the night, the Leader went home to his swank apartment where his parents were visiting from the North Pole, and Mini Me got drunk and retired early. And who cares about Gale.

Two days later we reconvened on the boat for a normal pre-charter work day. Now whilst we’re accustomed to the outlandish crew behaviour which transpires when we’re let off the leash, the following story tops that of Mario parking his car in the middle of the street and stealing someone’s wheelchair. Feeling a bit of separation anxiety (Stockholm Syndrome), Mini Me and Mario decided to join the Leader and his crumblies for several hundred bottles of rosé on his terrace, followed by a night on the town. By the time they left the apartment, Mini was so wankered that she had to be carried most of the way by the Leader’s mum, who was only slightly less inebriated than her. She proceeded to drop her purse every hundred metres, spilling it’s contents over the pavement, which then had to then be picked up by Mario, who was so drunk it was like watching a bull pick up pennies. She was promptly put in a taxi upon arrival. Mario was the next to go and he departed on foot, although he found himself unable to locate his hotel and vexed with some irritable bowels. Left with no other option than to relieve himself in a parking lot, he found a seemingly suitable spot between two cars and dropped his drawers. In the very most crucial moment of his unpleasant poop, he was suddenly caught in the headlights of the gendarmerie, which was followed by the deafening blast of the police siren. This gave him enough of a fright in his compromised state that he would’ve shit himself were he not already in the act of doing so. Eager to avoid any run-ins with the law, Mario promptly fled the scene clutching the front of his jeans to keep them up and the rear to avoid them making contact with his bum, and the po-po in hot pursuit. As the story goes, a chase ensued that involved scaling fences and hiding behind corners, and what he described as one particularly dramatic dive through some bushes, which landed him quite accidentally in front of the steps to his hotel. He got up, dusted himself off, picked the wedgie from his butt cheeks, and strolled into the Marriott.

We all stared at him in horror.

‘Don’t worry’, he added proudly ‘I threw away my pants’.

Jack Be Quick

‘I go’a do wot?’ asked Jack, frowning so concertedly that the furrow in his brow was as deep and hard as Tony Hawkins’ butt.

‘Take out the trash’, I answered.

He looked back at me from under what he called his ‘Riviera look’, which was essentially a gelled up hairstyle that he used a hair dryer to achieve.

‘Dude, I can’t even lift it. Besides, it’s your job’ I continued, ‘you know, work?’

The concept of hard work was lost on our slothful friend who spent his nights DJ-ing and days sleeping before he decided to try his hand at yachting. Up until now the crew had gone easy on the lad as he transitioned into the life of working for his money, and he passed as much time onboard as he could pretending to look busy and finding any excuse to go flirt with Charlie. God, I could even hear them flirting in my sleep. I could even hear them flirting in their sleep. But now that Charlie had moved on and Mini Me had returned, he had lost his will to live (onboard). 

He ran his fingers through his hair, his gold Casio catching the light.

‘Just take out the fucking trash and don’t forget to put a bag back in’, I said walking out.

So as Kay and I had initially predicted, it was no surprise when Jack handed in his notice after just three weeks. He spent the rest of his time onboard counting down the hours and obsessively unlocking his iPhone to look at his screensaver of a pair of tits, self-snapped and sent from a dolly-bird back home. Good help is so hard to find.

Dramarama!

‘Bella, Bella, Gale’.

I rolled my eyes and wondered what he could possibly want from me, since we’d only just rotated engineers the day before and he’d been onboard a mere 24 hours. I sighed and answered my radio, ‘Go ahead, Gale’.

‘When you have a minute, will you come down to the control room please?’

I already knew what it was about.

‘Is it urgent, I’m kinda busy?’ I lied.

‘That’s why I said, when you have a minute’, he spat over the radio.

I decided that I didn’t have a minute and took my sweet-ass time fixing up the cabins. About 50 minutes later, still without any intention of going to the control room, my made my way down to the crew mess to make myself a tea. Lo and behold, there I found Gale with his arms folded across his chest, frantically pacing up and down.

‘Ah,’ I exclaimed, ‘there you are. I was just about...’

‘Can you come to the control room please’, he cut me off mid sentence.

I was going to wind him up more, but decided to alter my approach and said, ‘Sure. What do you need?’ I was starting to enjoy myself.

‘Just come to the control room please’, he repeated through gritted teeth.

‘No problem’, I said, and began to make my way to the control room with him goose-stepping behind me like a Hitlerjugend, only fatter.

‘I really am busy, Gale, what is so important that I need to do this now?’

‘I need you to open an attachment for me.’

I stopped dead halfway down the deck and turned to face him. ‘Seriously? An attachment? You can’t even open up a file? You’re an engineer for godssakes, I’m sure you can figure it out. Or get one of the boys to help you, they’re sitting on their arses.’

He was starting to get very annoyed that his big take-down, which he had clearly played out in his mind, wasn’t going according to plan.

‘No, I want you to do it okay. Just do it.’ He whined commandingly.

I turned around, muttered the words ‘timewaster’ and continued across the deck, down the stairs, and into the control room where his computer sat. Once we were both in the room he leant back on the wall and crossed his arms across his chest, feigning nonchalance.

‘Open it’, he smirked, cocking his head in the direction of the computer.

‘Gale, I can see from here it’s a link to my blog, and I’m not gonna open it’, I stated matter-of-factly.

‘Open it’, he smirked again.

‘Yeah. That’s not gonna happen’. I shrugged.

He bolted upright, now fuming that not only had I foiled his big reveal, but that he now too was not getting his way. ‘I already know all about it, Magnus told me everything! I have a right to know what was in it if it’s about me!’ he yapped.

‘Firstly, you know about it because I told you yesterday that I wrote a blog that you featured in and I apologised for not asking you first’, I replied calmly. ‘And secondly, you don’t have a right to know what is in my private writing, none whatsoever. I, on the other hand, have a right to write about whatever and whomever I want. These two things are called the right to privacy and freedom of speech. You can have a gander at those if you’re so desperate for a read. And if you have a problem with it, take it up with the Leader, I’m going to go do my work’.

‘Oh no you’re not!’, he threatened, and called the Leader over the radio. The Leader, who anticipated Magnus’ bean-spilling and the fiasco to come, was there faster than you can say ‘gorilla’. I’m pretty sure he was waiting outside the door. Before the Leader could open his mouth, Gale demanded that he make me open my page.

‘Unfortunately, I can’t make Bella do that’, he reasoned. ‘My belief is that she has written things for her friends and family to read, and there is no law that...’

‘So you’re not going to make her do it?’ he interrupted, one of the Leader’s pet peeves.

‘Gale,’ the Leader started again, ‘unfortunately I have no right...’

‘Well, great. That’s just great!’ he disrupted again, and spun around on his heels to leave. Regrettably for Gale, he spun around with such point-proving gusto that his first step in the opposite direction landed off beam, giving him a case of the wobblies, and he tripped over the Jet Ski bed. A glare from the Leader caught my laughter short and my grin melted rapidly from my lips. He righted himself with a few steps and stormed out hastily, probably in search of a tampon.

I looked at the Leader both amusedly and apologetically.

He patted me on the back and commented, ‘You really do cause me a lot of shit, you know’.

‘I know’, I admitted apologetically.

We later found out that when Leader sought out Gale to do some damage control, he had locked himself in the 40°C engine room and wouldn’t come out.