‘I’m going to make $2000 dollars a week and travel the Caribbean’ – my departing line when I left my dear mix-match of friends in Byron Bay. Weeks later after emailing thousands of CV’s, talking till my throat went dry at networking events, walking in the Floridian heat to all the agencies, so many visits to office depot that they knew me by name…I couldn’t face speaking to my friends back in Australia to reveal the true reality.
You’re here just at the right time, you’ve got all the right skills, if you want a job badly enough you’ll get it’ were the repetitive words of encouragement. I felt as though I was doing all the right things and not getting anywhere. Starting out it is inevitable that you will feel this way, but guess who is the one saying all these lines now?
I went to all the yachty hotspots on the selected evenings – Tap 42 on ladies night, Waxy’s on a Friday night and I stood alone at the bar scouring the place for captains. I smiled while sipping on my controlled number of drinks and started conversations with anyone who could look like a captain. My main problem became determining if someone actually had the power to put you forward for jobs obviously the easier targets at these events were of the male variety. All yachties know that all unemployed, stews need a job and a way in and they are more than happy to offer their services. I don’t need to tell you the first thing that is on all of their minds. So I wasted time talking to guys who ‘definitely’ knew of a vacant stew position, or captains that said they needed someone just because actually they were a sixty year old who would later ask you for sex, before declaring their undying love for you.
Week three of waking up every morning, staring at my laptop screen searching, applying, emailing and social media lingering before dressing up in my yachty clothes and heading to the agencies to remind them that this lady isn’t going anywhere. The daily sun is glorious, but thoughts of the beach are just a fond memory from that first day I floated in that beautiful WARM water. It’s aircon all round for me in my little crew house that I shared with a guy who could not have looked more interested if I walked in wearing a chicken suit when I first moved into the house - ‘There’s no point telling me your name cause’ I wont remember it’. All this after a brisk move when Guirrelllmo, the couch host, surprisingly comes behind my head and sticks his tongue in my mouth pulling out a piece of banana that I have just that second bitten off while indulged in a novel– cue to leave.
So one day I was standing outside my second home – Office depot – if you are a yachty in Fort Lauderdale you will know it well, a voice behind me says ‘ I am looking for crew for my boat’, a few smart responses and a hand loading things into his car and he says ‘get in the car’…in I pop. He takes me to his house where his little boats are docked. He shows me around, ‘ I think we can both fit in there’ he gestures towards his bed. He offers to take me to the Bahamas for two weeks, I can help him out and he can teach me about boats.
What ends up happening is he puts me in touch with a detailing company and Cher the owner agrees to give me some work. She picks me up and I jump into the truck where I am greeted by three women, each one of their eyeballs pointing in a different direction and a good tooth or two missing from each mouth. ‘Hey y’all’, they say. The one in the back with me, Crystal, is from West Virginia and the rather large girl in the front is from Pennsylvania, the daughter of the boss. We arrive at an 80ft boat that has just been sold at the boat show and today we are to make sure the interior is perfect. As Cher leaves us the daughter says ‘ma, don’t you go leaving me here stranded, you know I can’t go four hours without eating’. It isn’t too long before I am stepping over her while she is sprawled across the sofa destroying a monster bag of Dorito’s. We stare at the cleaning products as Crystal announces she hates doing windows, ‘here’s where I a play the daughter card’ the next one says and I grab the kitchen roll and the windex and politely say ‘I don’t mind doing windows’ and that’s me. Boy there sure is a lot of windows and mirrors on a boat; at least I am burning off these bingo wings that these American sized portions have given to me. One thing that is so strange, the meals are five times the size and the kitchen roll sheets are divided to be half the size of ours back home, that doesn’t add up.
When we are done Crystal and I get taken to wash the exterior of a fishing a boat, I hope to god there are no remnants left of that activity and thank fully there isn’t. I bravely climb to the top of the boat and hose and scrub away, this is a lot more fun standing up high, playing with water – maybe I would prefer being a deck hand?
The novelty of standing on the roof of a boat soon wears off and I soon learn that I hate washing boats AND cleaning the interior. I am saved (so I think) when I get a call from the office depot guy who invites me to work for him. After a few days of cleaning the engine room – most glamorous job ever, he invites me to move onto the boat. Having had enough of Yachtie rentals, running slowly out of my budget and realizing that as nice as my new South African roommates were, no jobs would ever come through them: I decided to take him up on the offer. This was a big mistake as only an hour or two passed before he began touching my ass and asking people – ‘what do you think of my new tender?’
You’re here just at the right time, you’ve got all the right skills, if you want a job badly enough you’ll get it’ were the repetitive words of encouragement. I felt as though I was doing all the right things and not getting anywhere. Starting out it is inevitable that you will feel this way, but guess who is the one saying all these lines now?
I went to all the yachty hotspots on the selected evenings – Tap 42 on ladies night, Waxy’s on a Friday night and I stood alone at the bar scouring the place for captains. I smiled while sipping on my controlled number of drinks and started conversations with anyone who could look like a captain. My main problem became determining if someone actually had the power to put you forward for jobs obviously the easier targets at these events were of the male variety. All yachties know that all unemployed, stews need a job and a way in and they are more than happy to offer their services. I don’t need to tell you the first thing that is on all of their minds. So I wasted time talking to guys who ‘definitely’ knew of a vacant stew position, or captains that said they needed someone just because actually they were a sixty year old who would later ask you for sex, before declaring their undying love for you.
Week three of waking up every morning, staring at my laptop screen searching, applying, emailing and social media lingering before dressing up in my yachty clothes and heading to the agencies to remind them that this lady isn’t going anywhere. The daily sun is glorious, but thoughts of the beach are just a fond memory from that first day I floated in that beautiful WARM water. It’s aircon all round for me in my little crew house that I shared with a guy who could not have looked more interested if I walked in wearing a chicken suit when I first moved into the house - ‘There’s no point telling me your name cause’ I wont remember it’. All this after a brisk move when Guirrelllmo, the couch host, surprisingly comes behind my head and sticks his tongue in my mouth pulling out a piece of banana that I have just that second bitten off while indulged in a novel– cue to leave.
So one day I was standing outside my second home – Office depot – if you are a yachty in Fort Lauderdale you will know it well, a voice behind me says ‘ I am looking for crew for my boat’, a few smart responses and a hand loading things into his car and he says ‘get in the car’…in I pop. He takes me to his house where his little boats are docked. He shows me around, ‘ I think we can both fit in there’ he gestures towards his bed. He offers to take me to the Bahamas for two weeks, I can help him out and he can teach me about boats.
What ends up happening is he puts me in touch with a detailing company and Cher the owner agrees to give me some work. She picks me up and I jump into the truck where I am greeted by three women, each one of their eyeballs pointing in a different direction and a good tooth or two missing from each mouth. ‘Hey y’all’, they say. The one in the back with me, Crystal, is from West Virginia and the rather large girl in the front is from Pennsylvania, the daughter of the boss. We arrive at an 80ft boat that has just been sold at the boat show and today we are to make sure the interior is perfect. As Cher leaves us the daughter says ‘ma, don’t you go leaving me here stranded, you know I can’t go four hours without eating’. It isn’t too long before I am stepping over her while she is sprawled across the sofa destroying a monster bag of Dorito’s. We stare at the cleaning products as Crystal announces she hates doing windows, ‘here’s where I a play the daughter card’ the next one says and I grab the kitchen roll and the windex and politely say ‘I don’t mind doing windows’ and that’s me. Boy there sure is a lot of windows and mirrors on a boat; at least I am burning off these bingo wings that these American sized portions have given to me. One thing that is so strange, the meals are five times the size and the kitchen roll sheets are divided to be half the size of ours back home, that doesn’t add up.
When we are done Crystal and I get taken to wash the exterior of a fishing a boat, I hope to god there are no remnants left of that activity and thank fully there isn’t. I bravely climb to the top of the boat and hose and scrub away, this is a lot more fun standing up high, playing with water – maybe I would prefer being a deck hand?
The novelty of standing on the roof of a boat soon wears off and I soon learn that I hate washing boats AND cleaning the interior. I am saved (so I think) when I get a call from the office depot guy who invites me to work for him. After a few days of cleaning the engine room – most glamorous job ever, he invites me to move onto the boat. Having had enough of Yachtie rentals, running slowly out of my budget and realizing that as nice as my new South African roommates were, no jobs would ever come through them: I decided to take him up on the offer. This was a big mistake as only an hour or two passed before he began touching my ass and asking people – ‘what do you think of my new tender?’