It’s been two weeks since we’ve visited the Parsifal crew on Below Deck Sailing Yacht. It’s also been two weeks since Gabriela Barragan slunk off down the dock and became a quickly forgotten part of Below Deck history. Yachties come and go like clockwork on these shows, but not since Jessica Albert have I been so befuddled over the reasons a stew needed to leave. Obviously none of us were in Gabriela’s head. Or on board the boat. But it all just seemed so…minor to me as a viewer? Either way, she made her choice. She’s gone and now the crew is going into the next charter missing two crew members.
The whole ordeal seems pretty major for Daisy Kelliher as well. As chief stew, she feels like she failed her second. Failed herself. And failed the entire crew. Ashley Marti, on the other hand, couldn’t be more thrilled inside that her competition is out of the way. And you just know she’ll be gunning for second stew now, even though Daisy warns her that Gabriela’s replacement might have even more experience. At which point the third stew will likely spontaneously combust in a fiery rage of desperation.
However, the crew won’t be down two members for much longer. Because hours before the next charter’s set to begin, deckhand Barnaby Birkbeck strolls down the dock. And what a welcome sight he is for the deck team, who’ve been overworked and under-slept since Tom Pearson‘s firing many an episode ago. (Honestly, it feels like it’s been a year since Parsifal ran aground…) With his lanky frame and wild, curly locks, the new guy is a British ex-pat who grew up sailing boats in Singapore. This is only the second superyacht he’s ever worked on though. He’s more of a water sports instructor to the extravagantly rich and famous, and lists the Obamas and Sir Richard Branson as some of his past clients. Right away, however, he seems pretty competent on deck. So that’s a plus, even if Kelsie Goglia hates his hair.
Next, the primary, Dr. Nichols, and her entourage arrive. Yes, she’s the one who demanded in her preference sheet that the crew address her using her professional title at all times. Just in case you forgot. Yeah, this group of guests is going to be terrible. And they get straight to work proving that theory by firing off the most unnecessarily complicated drink order to Daisy in the history of hospitality. Seriously. A double bacon bloody Mary with two grilled shrimp and a transfusion of “equal parts vodka, ginger ale and grape juice”? Get over yourselves. They also demand that the stews (i.e. Ashley) steam every single piece of clothing the entire group brought. It’s all just obscenely rude.
I can’t decide what’s worse: the guests’ constant demand for libations they only drink half of or the fact that they all fell asleep while Captain Glenn Shephard went sailing. The primary literally slept through the entire experience! Then once they anchor, it’s one thing after another. The hot tub isn’t hot enough. They turn a simple question about when they would like dinner into a screaming match. Eventually, they settle on the somewhat ridiculously late hour of 1o:30 p.m. Which obviously means they won’t be ready until after that.
At this point, Chef Marcos Spaziani sees the stress the guests are putting the rest of the crew under and decides to save the day. If he can turn out an entertaining feast for dinner, the guests will be too distracted to complain about anything else. Right? Marcos pulls out all the stops with a late-night five-course meal. There’s Spanish tortilla with chorizo. French onion soup. Branzino. Tomahawk steaks. And poached pears with Bordeaux sauce for dessert. And the primary gets so wasted that by the time dessert is served, she’s completely forgotten she even had a main course. Marcos is also extremely distracted by the fact that the primary’s nipple is falling out of her dress the whole time he’s explaining each course.
The hour may be late, but the guests aren’t even close to being ready for bed once dinner is finished. Instead, they’d rather stay up partying the night away with drinks, music, and non-stop service. All of which falls on Daisy. One guest is demanding blankets and music on the fly bridge while another wants drinks down at the bar. They all want to be catered to hand and foot, but the chief stew’s only one person. And when she starts falling behind, the primary declares that Daisy’s service “sucks” and goes off to bed to pout. Meanwhile, poor Daisy is put through the ringer for the night, and doesn’t get to bed until after three in the morning. And to top it off, the night ends with one of the piggish male guests literally throwing a 100-pound bill in the chief stew’s face.
The next morning, it’s day two of the charter. And the entire crew is up bright and early, ready for another day of terrible manners and constant demands from the guests. Except they’re gifted an unexpected reprieve when all the guests spend most of the day fast asleep in their cabins. They don’t even start emerging until nearly two p.m. Guess you could’ve slept more then the usual four hours there, Marcos! There was no one around to eat breakfast!
While the rest of the crew is grateful for the break, Kelsie is not performing at her best. Gary King criticizes her for being slow. But the female deckhand likes to think she’s just more methodical going about her business than the first mate’s frantic and frazzled modus operandi. The guests spend the majority of the afternoon playing with all the toys and trying out the water sports. In fact, only one of them forces Daisy to juice green grapes for his asinine drink order. But when it comes time to put the mini-sail boats away, Kelsie makes a rookie mistake and drops a pin from one into the ocean. Watching it sink into the depths, she can hear Gary’s voice echoing inside her head, explicitly telling her to take the pin out on deck. You know, to avoid this exact thing happening.
But while Kelsie‘s getting on Gary‘s bad side, Barnaby is determine to get on Daisy‘s good one. Mostly by going above and beyond to do whatever he can to help her. Which actually is much appreciated, considering they’re down a stew and Ashley‘s probably still somewhere down in the laundry room steaming clothes until her fingers fall off.
With the guests getting such a late start to the day, it’s inevitable that the crew is in for another long night. They just don’t realize how long…Chef Marcos is preparing hand-rolled sushi (because these guests “like to feel rich”). And Daisy confirms that they’re planning to eat at 10 p.m. That is, until the guests once again fall asleep. And emerge from their cabins 10 minutes before dinner asking to push it back an hour. Maybe an hour and 15. Yeah, no one on the crew is getting any sleep tonight…
TELL US – SHOULD DAISY FEEL GUILTY ABOUT GABRIELA LEAVING? WHAT’S YOUR FIRST IMPRESSION OF BARNABY? ARE THESE GUESTS TOO DEMANDING? IS GARY BEING TOO HARD ON KELSIE?
[Photo Credit: Bravo]
