Lookit that, Bravo is serving us up some Below Deck only one week after Below Deck Mediterranean finished, that’s just good addiction feeding! Are you ready for a whole lot of new faces on our OG yachtie franchise? ME TOO. Rolling into my recap of Below Deck S9:E01 One Step Closer to World Domination after the break!
We’re in St. Kitts with….Eddie Lucas! He’s one of our originals, nice to see at least one familiar face! Oh. Looks like chef Rachel Hargrove is back to ‘f***’ more meals in the mouth/bum. Yay. Who else we got?
Aww no Captain Lee Rosbach this time, but he’s got some family issues to deal with and you gotta understand that. Captain Sean Meagher has some big old-timey shoes to fill as we say goodbye to Skinny Kenny Rogers.
Oooh Eddie’s been promoted to First Officer but I don’t recognise even one other person. I do recognise the boat, hai My Seanna! Well well well, it seems as though we may only have leprechaun-like Captain Sean for a short while, Captain Lee is dealing with some medical stuff again. At the beginning of last season he slipped in the shower so I legit thought it was a flashback until I saw the ‘LAST WEEK’ on the bottom of the screen.
Captain Sean has a super high voice and a very set jaw, something is up…He’s very experienced.
A gorgeous blonde woman walks along the deck to My Seanna, this is chief steward Heather Chase and for reals: beautiful. Wow, she’s super young, only 25 but has climbed the ranks by…washing d*ldos in Italy.
We’ve got a male interior member, woooo! Hai Fraser Olender! We’ve also got Jessica Alberta and I froze until I realised she’s not Jess. I liked Jess of RobAndJess but that was just too much. This Jessica has amazing teeth, freckles and doesn’t think she’s everything like one Fraser Olender.
Eddie looks through the resumes of his deck crew, he’s got Jake Foulger, Wes O’Dell and Rayna Lindsey. Rayna is beautiful with long beaded hair, Jake has a ludicrous mustache and Rayna LIKES IT. And everything about Jake, who truly is adorable except for his actual face under all of that.
Wow, Rayna’s super new to yachting, she has only a few months under her belt. Wes is incredibly handsome, but he’s not yachted before. He’s a sailboat captain and into money. Eddie wants to name someone Lead Deckhand as soon as he can, just hand it to Jake already.
Heather has her crew in their polos turning over laundry even before their first meeting, that’s different. Just as Eddie pulls his team in for a meeting in the mess, Captain Sean calls everyone up to the Sky Lounge for a whole boat meet.
Let’s see the off-camera crew woooooo!
Wow, there are six of them and I only got half their names: Jon, Alex and Gal. They just look like regular people, which highlights how disgustingly conventionally attractive our yachties are. We forget that because all yachties look like that, but they’re all super symmetrical, dentally and surgically enhanced and it can be easy to forget: most people look nothing like that.
Captain Sean tells everyone he is no good at cracking the whip, but he’s awesome at swinging an axe. He goes on to explain: if anyone does something wrong, he won’t yell at them, he’ll just fire them.
Like. For anything?
Rachel is the only person not here, the first charter is tomorrow and provisions are on the way. Go team!
Ooooh Heather is talking to the interior gang and all I see is this gorgeous silver tufted sofa with a raised back. I hate the bottom but you put some legs on that and. I’m sorry! She names Fraser as second because Jessica loves laundry. Fraser’s only been on one boat? That’s nuts. I have faith. I did notice he insisted on mentioning how much he likes laundry.
Provisions arrive as the deckies carefully swab decks in the hot sun, it’s nuts that the chef isn’t here to put things away. Oh there she is, hey. Don’t drink!!
She immediately comments on Captain Sean’s diminutive height: ‘hey, where’s your penis, honey?!’ so apparently it’s not just when she’s drunk that she says stupid stuff. Height has nothing to do with
Anyway.
Heather is super perky, everything is thumbs up-awesome!
Rachel has very, very red hair, how is her Italian boyfriend she was so worried for during COVID? Is he okay?? Are they still together? Why is her hair that colour? Why does she say this brings her One Step Closer to World Domination?
Eddie, Rachel and Heather are called to the Bridge for our very first Preference Sheet Meeting! WOOOOOO!
Our first Primary Charter Guest is Nikki Foster who is a Senior Branding Content Producer and what does that even mean? Is she an influencer? A YouTuber? Why is it just branding people on yachts these days??
Huh Captain Sean calls her a Broadcast Producer so I’m confused. Anyway, they want LOTS of events and messing around from the crew. I only see one other guest name: welcome Antonia Dean!
It’s a late (but sober) night and it’s our first charter day of the season! All of a sudden, we’re only one hour out, did all the teak get uselessly washed by several young people at once??
Captain Sean is a micro-manager, so many opinions about small things. Eddie finds him on deck rearranging pillows while the deck crew does their hair and the guests approacheth.
Guest arrival! Oh wow, all the guests are young, beautiful African-American women. Okay wait, a bunch are older than first look, but still: Rayna’s excited to party with her aunties.
Boat tour!
Jake is still grooming his mustache with Wes.
It’s a super windy de-docking, Captain Sean tells us all the reasons why its difficult while making it look ‘badda bing badda boom.’
Eddie is longing for Captain Lee, his ‘boat daddy.’
Fraser has gone from head of housekeeping to second steward; he has no idea how to make drinks. I love chocolate but his chocolate martini looks gross af. Guest Lauren liked it and that’s all that matters!
We pull up in Whitehouse Bay and drop anchor; the guests chill and Eddie and Rachel do not talk in the galley. We so rarely have repeating chefs on Below Deck that Eddie probably thought calling Rachel batshit crazy over and over last season wouldn’t be something he’d have to face. In the galley. Right now. Rachel doesn’t trust him and he doesn’t trust her so let’s call the whole thing off!
I mean, you just have to work together, chill.
Heather and Rachel work on the evening menu, Heather warns Rachel away from family style. i don’t think there should ever be family style served on a superyacht ever. They go with platters served individually and I grudgingly stand down.
These ladies like to eat early, too, it’s only 7 and they’re dressing! That’s almost normal people eating time, not rich-people grubbing!
This is our Caribbean-themed dinner and while I have every bit of faith in Rachel’s cooking, I can’t figure why Fraser is so slow.
He has the energy to complain over and over about Heather not having a plan, so there’s that.
Are…Wes and Jake actually deckhands? We watched Jake watch Rayna pull lines during de-docking and so far all I’ve seen Wes do is watch Jake manscape. Now they’re blowing up balloons.
Dinner is done and it’s time for the pajama party and Truth or Dare Jenga! Someone couldn’t perform, but since we don’t know who, we don’t curr. Early bedtime, yay!
Everyone is up early for brerkkie, well, everyone but the guests. There’s a beach picnic but. Wait. Is Heather writing down orders on a stickie note? Aren’t they supposed to be able to remember that?
Katie Flood from Below Deck Mediterranean lauuuughs.
Primary Nikki asks for Heather to meet her in her master cabin; Fraser forgot garbage there yesterday on the chaise lounge and it still hasn’t been picked up. She’s mortified but I remember so many other bad starts to charters that I have to shrug. I mean, at least we have a chef and the third stew isn’t cooking?
Especially since Fraser keeps going on about being head of housekeeping. Heather lays down the law, he bitches to us later. To be fair, he says something to her. I don’t think that’s going to be resolved any time soon, like this season.
The deck crew works hard at setting up for the beach picnic, but not early enough thanks to Captain Sean’s micro-managing slowing down the deck crew. The guests are getting extremely restless, one says she wants to shoot some people she’s so bored.
Captain Sean wants another 30 minutes! No way! The guests are livid and one extra fancy seating area isn’t going to make up for the additional hour they spent waiting for Captain Sean to make everything perfect.
The season previews shows us that Captain Lee does eventually show up; Fraser and Jake make out a lot and I think there’s a Rayna sandwich..plus someone drops a fender. Sure! Not a euphemism!
Until next time! Cheers
