Hiya and welcome back to another installment of Who Are We Firing Today? also known as Below Deck Down Under where American accents are thin on the ground and the food is awful. We’re rolling into a new charter, let’s find out what happens in my recap of Below Deck Down Under S1:E10 Loads of Croc after the break!
Oh. We’re not ready for another charter, we’re in the middle of one and a fight between Captain Jason Chambers and chef Ryan McKeown. You only have to look at those titles to understand who will win this shouting match, I just don’t understand why Ryan is being so stubborn.
A couple of charter guests went night-fishing and caught two squid. They asked for the squid to be cooked and served to them, Ryan agreed and then went ahead with his crappy squid-less meal anyway. Seeing as Captain Jason used to work with Primary Charter Guest Johny De Keghel, he’s perhaps wanting to show off really good service, which this is the opposite of. The guests also caught fish that they’d like to eat that Ryan hasn’t even looked at.
After the fight, Captain Jason retreats to the dining room to text another Captain angrily, but there isn’t a chef available or Ryan would be gone tonight. This is staffing during COVID.
Ryan is asked directly by the guests about being served their squid, he says he’ll bring out some salt and pepper something.
I love salt and pepper squid!
The aforementioned night-fishing is what deckhand Ben Crawley used as an excuse to not do any of his night shift cleaning duties so bosun Jamie Sayed now gives him an extremely detailed list of what needs to be done this evening. Benny thinks his ‘injecting his personality’ into the guest experience should replace working, and sure.
This is a buck’s party for guest James (also called a bachelor party in other parts of not-Australia), who doesn’t quite make it alllll the way through dinner before passing out in his room. Second steward Tumi Mhlongo is down there cleaning cabins, maybe she can check his airway every once in awhile.
Chief steward Aesha Scott is on service with third steward Magda Ziomek who is struggling to keep focus. Magda and her boyfriend are having a hard time with the distance in their LDR.
Ryan finally serves up the calamari at almost 10:30 at night, long after James went to bed. The other guests finish up dinner and go night-fishing off the swim platform. Magda stays up late with the guests, Aesha reminds her to work fast because there is a tonne to get done.
Magda takes exception to that; she works hard all the time and these comments don’t help! Except she doesn’t work hard or fast all the time, we’ve seen her take five hour naps in the middle of cleaning as well as videochat during service.
She’s videochatting now, at 1:15 am and goes to bed with much left to be done. Same with Ben, he leaves a mess and goes to sleep early.
Aesha notices work not done by Magda as does Jamie looking at all the mess left behind by Benny. Neither of these people can be trusted to work alone.
Deckhands Brittini Burton and Culver Bradford will be doing Benny’s job as well as their own this last morning of charter.
It’s extremely quiet in the galley between Captain Jason and Ryan, Captain Jason heads downstairs where Magda is texting her boyfriend. Again.
The guests pack while the deck crew prepares to dock, which is always tense. The guest send-off goes well except Primary Johny asking where his fish went?
I think Culver put it in the freezer!
I love that these guys were the cleanest guests so far, I’m positive that’s the opposite anyone would think of a bunch of young guys in their late twenties/early thirties.
So what’s the tip?? $20k AUS?
Or $22,900 AUS! Sure! That means $17,600 USD, $1,460 each wooooooo! The discoball helmet of shame goes to: Jamie! He needs to whip the deck team into shape.
Captain Jason doesn’t air the crew dirty laundry with the group, he tells Ryan they will be talking with Aesha to get to the bottom of the issue.
Captain Jason called a yachtie recruiter just before Tip Time.
So in this (completely unnecessary) meeting, Captain Jason explains that he wants service to work between Aesha and Ryan, both heads of their own departments. Aesha does not work for Ryan and vice versa.
Captain Jason is mostly concerned about Ryan’s attitude, although his food also sucks lots of the time. Will/can Ryan fix that?
Ryan apologizes.
Captain Jason isn’t done, he takes Aesha aside and asks about Magda’s phone use. She’s using ten times as much as any other crew member. Aesha calls Magda to the salon for a chat with the Captain.
Magda blames her phone use on having a boyfriend but Aesha points out she has one too and doesn’t use all that data. Captain Jason asks her to manage her time better and that’s it for now.
Time for a night out! Everyone gets fancy but it may not be too crazy tonight as they’re all going on a crocodile safari the next day.
I DON’T UNDERSTAND why Aesha is playing with Britinni’s boobs or why they’re even out again?? Is this why always a separate cab ride?
Magda smokes with Tumi, wishing aloud that Tumi was her chief steward. Let me tell you: you do not wish that because Tumi has already said she would have handled Magda a lot harder than the kid glove treatment she’s getting from Aesha.
Brittini is kinda tipsy and not respecting work hierarchy while out partying. This exasperates her boss Jamie, trying to discipline her while they’re drinking and he’s wearing a giant discoball helmet of shame.
Other than that, it’s an uneventful evening and everyone is back on the boat and in bed early.
Time for a crocodile safari! Culver does an impression of Steve Irwin in a mullet because of course he does. The girls play FMK with Aesha and Brittini choosing this order: Captain Jason/Culver/Benny. The crocodile tour is fun, Jamie is one of our Australians so he’s not quite as excited as the Americans hahaha.
Captain Jason stays behind to pick apart the boat’s cleaning; finding bag after bags of food covered in maggots and yeah, he’s not happy about it.
The crew moves on to Airlie Beach for a meal, it looks fantastic and the chef is HOT. Madga and Ryan break apart to shittalk Aesha. Ryan is really leaning heavily into saying Aesha doesn’t work or pull her weight. I hate everything they’re saying. I’d much rather Jamie and Culver dance pachata on the beach together. Britinni and Culver break off while everyone hopes they have babies.
Benny’s actually quite funny when you don’t expect him to work! Maybe that personality injection is his job!
Ryan makes a mistake and starts shittalking Aesha to Tumi, it’s just such classic bullshit and I’m sad for everyone involved. One day you’ll grow up. Or you’ll just get old enough to post shitty status updates on Facebook like everyone else. Typical.
Britinni and Jamie are talking about his tattoos at dinner and then we hear a really tragic tale about Jamie’s past. He has a series of Chinese characters along his spine; he got that tattoo after he tried to rescue a young Chinese boy who drowned at the casino where Jamie worked. We cry as he talks about it, what a horrible thing to witness.
This is why he’s so concerned about safety.
Ryan and Magda shittalk Aesha throughout supper, Tumi finally cracks and tells Aesha what they’ve been saying.
Aesha is quiet for the rest of the night. It’s very noticeable. When she doesn’t come get into the hot tub with everyone, Brittini finds her in her bunk and Aesha ends up crying and telling her what Tumi told her about what Ryan and Magda were saying.
I mean. That sentence.
Ryan hears allllll of this and instead of taking responsibility for what he said and maybe apologizing, he goes straight to the hot tub to yell at Tumi for being fake and repeating the shite he was spewing as loudly as possible at the table.
Until next time! Cheers!
