Rhino Funeral

So the last few days have seen some debauchery, but before I get into that, here are the photos of our damn fantastic bread masterpieces:

 

 

 

The collection of bread animals is now overflowing and we’re not quite sure what to do with the zoo, which is sitting on a tray in the galley. We’ve debated keeping them to use to decorate the Christmas tree at the end of the year, but we’ve had a few heads and such fall off. All sitting together it became apparent that Leader’s ‘rhino’ was a bit of an eye-sore, compared to the rest of brilliantly crafted bread animals, and we decided to hold a Viking funeral for the fat shit. We built the sturdiest paper boat we could manage, gathered on the swim platform, and sent the rhino/mole/hippo/rat out to sea. Leader made a very short and moving speech, during which he might’ve actually cried, yet we couldn’t get the boat alight in time and he drifted off unlit. We reckoned that the weight of the bugger would eventually sink the boat, but it held fast, and we all stood around randomly waiting for something to happen, which it didn’t. Anticlimax.

The guests went off to bed and we decided to enjoy the advantages of being on land and head for one drink down at the pub. Kay, Mini Me and I met Mario, Leader and Magnus, who had already had a few, and that few turned into a very many lots few between the lot of us as the night progressed. We snorted with laughter until we fell off our chairs and arrived back at the boat at 3 am reeling. More beers made their way out of the fridge as we continued the party in the crew mess, until someone noted the absence of Magnus. Looking around we noted that he had indeed disappeared, and we nearly killed ourselves laughing when we spotted him on the surveillance cameras sleeping face down on the engine room floor.

Afraid that he might just freeze without a toilet paper mummy suit, this is how he woke up:

Egg Evacuation

So we dropped off the guests today and are tied up in port until Thursday, what a blessing. Even though we still have two guests on, it is nice to enjoy the normality of being on land and do even the simplest things like, you know, walk. We cracked out the boxing gloves and pads last night and kicked arse until the wee hours and I think that everyone is feeling it today. Some of us are feeling particularly more fragile than the rest though, namely our Leader, who accidentally ate egg in some veal tartar, and spent the rest of the afternoon chewing backwards into the thunder box, sadly.

Kay and I felt the need to pike off the boat for a few hours rather strongly, and went for a cheeky strawberry daiquiri in some hidden waterway lagoon. Not wanting to seem too irresponsible, we returned in time and sober, only to realise that whilst we were off and the captain was practically foaming at the mouth, the boys were off getting completely wankered themselves. They went off to conduct Mario’s usual bar prowl for the unemployed and desperate, and I’m pleased that I have my efficient German girl back again who looks something similar to this:

Spencer, who was particularly jovial, was going around hugging everyone and calling them ‘team’. He was ever so kind to help me ready cabins for the next guest arrival, but what with him falling all over the place and stuffing his face with the turn-down chocolates, he proved to be more entertaining than helpful.

We ended off the evening making some dough-tastic creations and the level of creativity has now been taken to a new level. Photos to follow suit tomorrow!

Fuggdup Man

‘Hello?’

‘Hi Isabelle, it’s ________. I’d like to take the crew out to dinner tonight. Would you like to come, at eight?’

‘Yeah alright’. At that stage we were partying every night and I had started to realise that I needed a proper meal rather than just the garnish on my cocktails. ‘I can’t talk long though Mr. ________, I have another call waiting’.

‘Hello?’

‘Dude it’s me,’ Kay said, ‘Mr. ________ is about to call you to go to a crew dinner tonight. Whatever you do, say NO! If you go, I’ll have to go too and believe me, it’ll be horrific’.

‘Oh fuck’.

                                                ***

A few days ago in my post Bear Country, I promised to regale you with the tale of the most excruciating crew dinner ever. It was when I just joined the last boat I worked on with Kay, who hadn’t been on very long herself. The crew were a bunch of Mickey Mouse assholes who had no idea of how superyachts should function. It was run by a manager for starters, who had a glass eye which made him look so squint he could just about see around corners. He had asked a collection of land lubbers to work on the boat and because he couldn’t say no to anyone, it was over-crewed with nitwits. The captain was also new and the only other professional seaman on the boat besides Kay and myself. He should’ve been the overruling power onboard, as captains always are, but he had very little say at all, and the two clashed at every turn. In the manager’s absence, the pecking order was further disturbed by the ETO (electrical technicians officer), who had taken the majority of the captain’s duties upon himself. The chief stew who was the biggest wanker of them all, was unpleasant to start off with, but a downright nightmare after I stole her job whilst she was on holiday, only to come back as my (in)subordinate. I would’ve felt bad but you know what? Be better.

The engineer had a terrible stutter and it would take him years just to get a word out. He was nice enough but he left a wake of filthy mess wherever he went, sullying everything he touched with grease, boat slime and talcum powder (read about that here if you missed it). The deckhand was from the Eastern Block and never spoke. Ever.

Lastly there was the South American first mate, whom I wrote about three weeks ago in Don’t Hate the Mate, who loved nothing more than to get ‘fuggdup mayn’.

I met Kay on the corner near the restaurant for a quick briefing, which made me consider turning about on my five inch heels and teeter off to our local. As we sat down at the table, the one-upmanship started immediately. Both the captain and the ETO made a grab for the wine list, and getting there at the same time, had a near tug of war over who should pick the wine.

‘I’m thinking we should go for a Brunello di Montalcino...’, started the ETO.

‘Nice choice. In Italy I can buy that for 40 euros a bottle’.

‘No you can’t.’

‘Yes, I can’.

‘Well then it probably isn’t a Brunello’.

‘It is’.

‘You can’t get that wine for under 80 euros a bottle’.

‘You can if you know the right people’.

‘Well I doubt that you know the right people’.

This continued all night and at some point I wished that they’d just have an old fashioned sword fight to the death and get it over with. This went on between the captain and the manager all evening too, and it reminded me of that awful feeling when you’d visit a friend’s house to play after school and they’d have a row with their parents, making you feel so uncomfortable you just wish you could melt into the ground. The engineer tried to distract from the testosterone battle, but the obvious awkwardness of it started to make him stutter even more considerably.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the stupidess whose job I nabbed sat texting on her phone all night without so much as lifting her head, until the captain mentioned, very politely and reasonably, that it was rather rude.

Her thin, villainous mouth retorted, ‘If you had someone to love you, maybe you’d be texting too’. Kay had her head buried in her menu, and I was doing my best to finish the engineer’s sentences. The deckhand, who never spoke (how the fuck did he get through the job interview?!), was no solution to the poor conversation either.

The only person who seemed to be enjoying himself was the 21 year old First Mate, who was in fact, having a whale of a time. As soon as he heard that we were going for a crew dinner he started drinking, and spent at least two hours beforehand saying, ‘Leets get fuggdup meyn’ between every other sip of beer, in his think South American accent. Needless to say that by the time we got there, he was properly pissed and saying how great everything was. It started to get very annoying when he was raising his glass to toast every three minutes and eating the food off everyone else’s plates. It escalated even further when he was eventually falling out of his chair trying to talk to people at the tables next to us. The waiter looked at me sympathetically. The verbal arm wrestling, the rude stew and the annoyingly unaware mate had el capitano visibly irritated. This, in turn, kept Kay’s head almost buried in her food, me trying to divert the objectionable discourse and the engineer stuttering so badly at this point that he could hardly talk at all. For the first time ever, I seriously considered popping off to the bathroom and leaving without saying goodbye. Kay and I looked at each other with our What-the-Fuck? Faces on, torn between fits of laughter, anxiety and despair. ‘Dude’, I said, ‘this is fuggdup man’.

There's a Thief Amongst Us

So over the past month and a half things have been slowly disappearing. It started the day that Kay and I snuck off for a cheeky swim whilst the guests were off. We got back on the boat, collected our stuff but our radios were gone, only to be found later on Spencer’s bed. We assumed that he picked them up without thinking, but since then everything from documents, to uniform and even a pair of knickers and a hairbrush have found their way into his possession, and it became apparent that we have a boat clepto on our hands. Of course, everything that is even slightly misplaced now gets blamed on Spencer immediately, and the bugger is constantly in the firing line for his thieving ways. It also became apparent that the first person to trace the relocated goods back to Spencer’s ill-acquired stockpile was his very own cabin-mate, our Leader. One day, however, our faithful Leader was caught red handed nicking a pair of radio clips, and it turns out that over the last six weeks he has been pinching and planting all sorts of paraphernalia and practically hand-bumping himself when Spence cops the shit for it.

To make up for the time and effort spent locating our belongings, and just because, Kay and I have decided to do some planting of our own. The guests came back with some rather gross sea creatures one day that they described as food, and asked Kay to prepare them. The best way to describe these slimy snails would be phlegm in a shell. Blegh. 

So we’ve kept some aside, and for the past few days have been placing one in their sink every day. I can only imagine that upon one of them finding it, he’ll assume that the other coughed an enormous loogie into the sink and neglected to wash the offender down. I’m guessing that only so many occasions will go unmentioned before one of them will find the need to reprimand the other for their odious ways, and whole scale confusion and finger pointing will ensue. I wish I’d be there to witness it, but for the meantime I’ll amuse myself with the mental image and the fits of laughter I muffle whenever I tiptoe into their bathroom like the fucking Pink Panther holding a mollusc.

Addicted to Beauty

These are some of the joys of working at sea. Crack out the magnifying glass if you'd like to see them in more detail, or just click on the images themselves:

 

 

 

 

 

Dough-mestic Bliss

Our time in port was short lived as we were informed at dinner that six more guests would be joining the next day. When the hungover crew eventually did get out of bed, they all shuffled around in agony, looking for places to hide. We spent the night at sea as per usual, and memories of a normal life are becoming vaguer and vaguer. A bunch of us were sitting on the galley counters when someone brought up where and with who we’d be if we could be anywhere else. We all went around saying where we’d like to be in an imaginary world outside of The Good Ship, and I realised that we sounded like a bunch of Alcatraz convicts with life sentences.

At least once or twice a week when we all have time late at night, we congregate in the galley while Kay is making bread for the next day, talk shit, drink beer and have dough-character making competitions. No-one really wins these competitions, although we do decide who’s is the best, and usually come to the conclusion that Leader’s dough animals, due to their complexity, aren’t. These are the characters from the very first Dough Off.

Let it be known that I was in a hurry and possibly a little drunk, although it can be clearly seen that mine is a man holding some sort of flora. Kay’s is a whale, Mario’s is his own terrifying version of the Boogey Man I’m guessing, Mini’s is a cat and Leader’s is a rhino. After it was baked, the ‘rhino’ looked like this:

Rather indistinguishable if you ask me, and every time someone walks past they call it a different thing, ‘Hey, nice mole!’ This drives Leader crazy.

I considered myself the winner in the second Dough off, although Magnus did make a standing snake and Mario a stingray. 

We’re still in a heated debate over the issue of illegal use of props such as toothpicks. The competition is getting pretty fierce nowdays, and I’m pretty sure that some people dedicate a portion of their day to thinking up their next dough creation.

Bear Country

Having chosen a good pampering over and an arduous provisioning just meant that Kay and I had to do it the next day. As we left the boat our Leader called after us, ‘Try not to wreck the car!’

‘Yeah, yeah’, we called back, and left in our fender bent rental to mosey around buying galley equipment and bar toys. When we eventually got to the supermarket, we ignorantly hogged the space in front of the organic stand killing ourselves laughing at tomatoes that were shaped like bums and willies. We spent more time doing this than I care to mention, and you can see why.

Realising the rush that we were in, I overloaded about four shopping carts full with drinks and water. The manager came over to help me push my mountain of Evian, and in doing so rode over my toes with all 190kgs of it. By the time Kay finished with her shop she found me pale from pain, re-experiencing the anxiety from my childhood when my mother would say, ‘You wait in the car darling, I’m just going to buy some milk’, and would come back 45 minutes later with half the store.

We made it back in time to load off and tart-up get dressed, as the owner was taking us out for dinner. If a guest in the crew area is like a bear in the campsite, then heading out for scran is akin to being out in the fully fledged woods in bear country (I think they call it Canada). A story about awkward crew dinners to follow someday soon. However, even though we are worked harder than little Fang Lee in Ye Old Sweatshop, our owner is as cool as folk, and as opposed to being laborious and awkward as most guest dinners are, it was farking top. I remained sober, true to my sugar detox, and I am so very glad as it allowed me to mentally store what came next.

After several magnums of rose the owners reigned themselves in and left us to our own devices, and the rest, having spent way to long at sea, let the reigns go completely. Leader, who just couldn’t get it in him fast enough, ordered bottle upon bottle as if his life depended on it. Mini Me at this point was so far gone that she was passed out over some chairs and would pop up sporadically to announce that it was time to go dancing before passing out again. Kay was offering me 50 bucks to put my broken foot in the ice bucket that had found a home next to me. Magnus, who was too drunk to talk and breaking glasses left, right and centre, was playing musical chairs although every time he relocated to chat to someone else, found himself unable to get it out. We left when the restaurant staff was practically flicking the light switches and Mario, who’s exchange with dry land was not long enough, thought that it’s be a great idea to drop three grand at the casino. Fail. Mini Me couldn’t get her shoes on so she left them behind in the bar, which worked in her favour as it allowed her to kick Leader better. Magnus was directing traffic the whole walk home, even when there wasn’t any. The eight minute stroll back took us 35 minutes, and upon arrival back at the boat the crisps and babybel cheeses made their usual appearance. In some sort of bizarre manoeuvre, Magnus managed to fall out of his cabin and onto the crew mess floor, where he slept until Mario woke him up when he returned from the casino at 4am. Kay, probably the most sober of the lot, fell asleep with just about half of her body hanging over the edge of her bed, and Mini Me, fresh back from her Barbados visa run, climbed into hers without any sheets on. This did not matter really, as she fell out of the top bunk in the wee hours and climbed into bed with Kay. I realised the next that I was wrong, and perhaps we are the bears in bear country.