I’ve decided that life working on a superyacht gets even better when you keep a mental (or actual) list of small things that make you laugh.
Not the big, meaningful life moments.
Just the nonsense.
The things that absolutely shouldn’t be funny… but very much are.
December delivered plenty of those – along with a brief interlude where I was in bed with Flu A like a sick Victorian child – so in no particular order, here are a few moments from my December working on a superyacht that genuinely improved my quality of life.
7 Small joys from this month of life working on a superyacht
#1. My Team Discovering S Club 7
So apparently they’d never heard of S Club 7.
When I found this out, I was horrified.
Horrified.
I was like – sorry, what do you mean you don’t know Reach?
Never Had a Dream Come True?
You?
Two in a Million?
Natural?
BRING IT ALL BACK?????
WHAT DO YOU MEEEEEEAAANNNNNNN YOU DON’T KNOW S CLUB PARTY?
This revelation was treated with the seriousness it deserved.
Reach was played in our morning meeting, and I immediately sent a playlist to the interior WhatsApp group, because some music is not optional knowledge – it’s cultural education.
Songs that are quite literally the stuff of legend.
#2. Shepherd’s Pie Is Apparently Someone’s Favourite Meal
Then during our lunchtime question of the day, we were asking each other our favourite meals. And someone casually says that shepherd’s pie is their favourite meal.
Shepherd’s pie?
Favourite food?
Yuck.
I chose to pretend I hadn’t heard it because, honestly, straight to jail.
Worst meal in the ENTIRE WORLD.
#3. A Training Exercise, But Make It Slip ’n Slide
One of those moments where someone whispers something wildly inappropriate during a serious talk, and you have to maintain a completely neutral face.
During a SOPEP training (a training on how to deal with oil spills), we were asked what the emergency phrase would be that would be announced over the PA during an oil spill.
Correct answer: “Oil spill, oil spill, oil spill.”
However, as this is happening – while we’re all meant to be Very Serious Professionals – one of the girls leans over and whispers, “Oh… is it not slip ’n slide, slip ’n slide, slip ’n slide.”
This was me.
#4. Innovative Ideas That Were Not Approved
I proposed that we start using GIFs instead of email signatures.
It was agreed that this was an excellent idea.
Unfortunately, it was not approved.
#5. Santa Bob is Comin’ to Town
One of the guys onboard – lovely, funny and quiet – had also become an unexpected cornerstone of our festive season. For the sake of this story, let’s call him Bob.
I told Bob he’d been nominated by the Christmas Committee to be Santa for our crew’s Secret Santa.
(This committee did not exist. I did, however, keep informing random people that they were on it, and then removing them for offences such as not having watched Love Actually.)
For the avoidance of doubt: we already had a Santa who had happily agreed to the role.
Bob’s response was a much more explicit version of:
“There is a zero per cent chance I am being Santa.”
Which we fully acknowledged.
And then proceeded to ignore for the entire month of December.
Captain announced in a crew meeting that Bob had offered to be Santa.
We all clapped.
Thereafter, the Christmas countdown board read:
X days until Santa Bob’s comin’ to town.
It was the joke we didn’t know we needed, but were extremely glad we had.
#6. A System Has Been Established
Honestly, my team deserves their own section – purely because they are wonderful and hilarious.
Somewhere along the way, our morning and end-of-day meetings stopped being normal meetings and turned into… whatever this is now.
If someone does something nice, something funny, or quite literally just their job – we clap for them in our meeting.
Yesterday, our ETO fixed a plug socket we needed for the vacuum. This is, objectively, his job. But it also meant we could finally plug the vacuum into the easiest access socket again, which felt genuinely life-changing.
So naturally it was:
“CLAP FOR X 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻”
This has now escalated to the point where other departments have commented that our meetings sound like great fun and have started asking their own HODs why they don’t clap for people.
#7. Secret Stockings and Peak Festive Joy
And finally, my highlight was secretly making stockings for everyone in my cabin for Christmas Day – chocolate coins and sweets, Christmas socks, and a few extra bits.
I wrote personalised letters from Santa for everyone, with the help of Canva and ChatGPT, saying they’d made it to the nice list, however there were some close calls – (the shepherd’s Pie incident being one of them.)
That felt like a good use of my free time.
Things I Didn’t Love (for Balance)
Because life is about balance, and not everything has been cute and clap-worthy.
#1. Being struck down with Flu A (aka the hideous super flu) at 3 pm on the 24th of December.
Festive.
Magical.
Impeccable timing.
The morning of the 24th was a work day and very much:
“Hmm, I don’t feel great… but I have things to do, so let’s simply power through.”
By 3 pm on the dot, the second work finished, my body said:
“Absolutely not.”
Immediate decline.
Sudden betrayal.
Straight to bed feeling horrendous,
So the Christmas I’d spent pretty much two months planning for the crew and was SO super excited for – ended up looking like:
- Christmas Eve afternoon games: in bed, unconscious
- Christmas dinner: in bed, unconscious
- Secret Santa: in bed, unconscious
- Christmas Day: still in bed
- Boxing Day: also still in bed
- A further 3 days in bed and another week feeling crap and exhausted, but alive
The 24th – 26th were honestly the worst I’ve felt in about ten years.
And for context, I am usually a very healthy person.
I’ve had proper flu maybe three or four times ever in my life, and every single time it has been terrible.
No exceptions.
This was the kind of influenza where:
- If the boat was on fire, I’d have been like “ok, but is it coming to me?”
- If Chris Hemsworth walked into my cabin to propose marriage, I’d have said, “sir plz I am currently indisposed staring at my ceiling”
On the 26th, a doctor was called.
He confirmed Flu A via the most aggressive nasal swab I’ve ever experienced – truly a hate crime – and then, while I sat there looking like E.T. in the scene where he’s sick, the Doctor proceeded to lecture me about how all crew should be vaccinated for flu.
Sir.
Firstly, read the room.
Secondly, you are absolutely speaking to the wrong person.
Diagnosis: Flu A.
Sentence: 7 days isolation.
Vibes: low.
The 27th offered false hope.
After another night of night sweats, I woke up feeling a lot brighter and thought, ah yes, recovery.
I did a little too much (by “too much”, I mean showered and tried to tidy my cabin.)
A rookie error.
By that evening, my body was like remember me?
Cue another night of hideous night sweats.
I woke up at 2am absolutely drenched – genuinely soaked head to toe.
My pillow was wet.
The towel I’d been lying on was soaked.
The duvet cover was soaked.
I lay there for a moment thinking, ok, can I just ignore this and go back to sleep?
Like maybe if I don’t move, this will go away.
And then reality kicked in:
No. I cannot sleep in these conditions.
Which led to me at 2 am showering, changing bedding, and wrestling with a fitted sheet that does not fit my top bunk bed, while questioning how this had become my Christmas experience.
A deeply humbling moment.
The 28th?
Back to feeling awful again after the nights antics.
This whole time I was sleeping on towels because the night sweats were so bad. Yuck, I know.
I was consuming vitamin C tablets like it was my full-time job. If it were socially acceptable to inject it directly into my eyeballs, I would have explored that option.
I was drinking around 352 litres of water a day, listening to Spotify affirmations about being healthy, speaking firmly to the universe that I was, in fact, healthy – all while being stuck in a stuffy cabin, in a bunk bed I couldn’t even sit up in properly.
I had flights booked to go home on leave in early January, and there was a 0% chance I would not be getting on that flight.
(Don’t worry, I completed my isolation and was safe to be around people again + had a mask!)
Anyway, flu while working on a superyacht is a solid 0/10 experience.
Would not recommend.
On the plus side, I did accidentally lose some weight, purely because I went from approximately 847 trips to the snack cupboard a day to zero.
So, you know – every cloud.
Anyway – that’s the list.
Recovery happened eventually, and life is once again full of sunshine and rainbows.
If you’re curious about what working on a superyacht is actually like – the good bits, the weird bits, and the things no one really talks about – there’s more of that here in the Superyacht Life section.
And if you’re mostly here for the “LOL – GIRL, SAME” energy, the Delulu Diaries are very much a thing.
