I shall be sharing the great, the good, the bad and the downright nasty of the super-yacht crew experience, as a crew chef on a 63M super-yacht. In saying this, I am not going to be using this space to vent, whine or sugar coat shit. I will be stating straight facts and not letting personal bias get in the way of that.This blog is not meant for anything else but insight for those who are curious how things are onboard a super-yacht for crew. Also please keep in mind that no boat and crew are the same, all these stories will be of my own personal experience.
The day I arrived, it was a weekend, and everyone was on their days off. I met with the head chef, first officer, the one stewardess, purser and the lead deckhand. All were very nice and very hospitable. My cabin is what to be expected, except I didn’t expect to be so high to the ceiling.
First off there are two beds, so a bunk bed, I got the top bunk. The bed is a single bed, not a ¾. The sheets are of good quality and so is the duvet. The pillows are memory foam and pillowcases are also of good quality. There is a small side table next to the bed that is attached to the wall that has two little drawers for personal belongings. There is a small amount of space to keep some other items, such as laptop, small bag and other personal belongings. Being on the top bunk there are also two port holes with storm shields attached to them. Along with that there is ample cupboard space with a laundry bag for personal clothes and as mall washing bag to put your underwear and socks in, so the stewardess doing laundry doesn’t need to touch the under garments until they are washed. The washroom has a toilet, tiled floor, decent sized shower, and a mirror with plenty of storage space for all toiletries and extra bits and pieces. There are signs and clear instructions on how to keep your cabin cleaned. There is a cleaning schedule for once a week and another for once a month. The cleaning instructions could not be any clearer.
Everyone gets assigned a laundry day, mine is Wednesday. On this designated day, all your personal clothes and bed linen must be in the laundry room no later than 8am, and if its later than 8am then you will have to wait for next week. Your personal crew uniform can and should be dropped into the crew laundry basket daily.
After I was done setting up my bunk and unpacking, the Pursor asked if I would like to join her with foraging the next day (Sunday). I accepted the offer and was up at 6:30am to leave at 7am.While waiting in the crew mess, the lead deck hand and myself got to chatting.About 10min into talking, the chief engineer emerges from his cabin and flew into us for talking so loudly on a Sunday morning, I felt bad, and it wasn’t how I wanted to meet anyone for the first time.
We wondered in the forest and got lots of pine boletes and pine rings. It was great getting to know the Pursor and we seem to share a very strong common interest in the beauty of nature. I spent the rest of the day getting adjusted to the boat and mentally preparing myself for the next day.
I got out of bed at 6am and had my first coffee. In hindsight this was way too early to get up. My head chef arrived at 8am like everyone else and we got cracking. We pulled out all the food from the weekend and decided what we were going to use for other dishes on the day. A lot of food gets thrown away and I have a plan in place to prevent this from happening, well at least in the winter months. The whole week was relatively the same.
Crew dinner was on Wednesday evening, it was a perfect time to socialise and get to know everyone. I decided not to go out for drinks after as I don’t drink and seeing how everyone looked the next day, I made the right choice. My birthday was the next day, and I was very surprised to see how much an effort the crew made. Banners were put up, balloons on my door and the head chef made a cake and everyone sang Happy Birthday. The crew also all signed a birthday card with their best wishes written inside. I really appreciated the sentiments, and I will go out of my way to make everyone’s birthday onboard a special one.
As the weekend came about, I decided to go foraging again and the Pursor joined me. We went for four hours and then into Palma where we went for sushi, which was delicious. The remainder of the Saturday was dedicated to relaxing, and the Sunday was dedicated to this blog, cleaning my cabin, planning next week’s menu and mentally preparing for the week ahead.
My next post will be more about the food, how the galley runs and the day-to-day operations of the boat.As far as I can see this is an extremely well-run boat and the crew are very professionals who take their work seriously.
