Welcome to Below Deck Med season nine! For those of us who’ve been watching the flagship series, we got no weeks off between seasons, much like the breakneck pace of turning around a boat for back-to-back charters. Before the premiere begins, the preview of the season ahead teases a rope breaking, makeouts, near makeouts, and too many blondes, so I can’t tell who anyone is. I can’t wait to see all these moments in context and realize that most of them are pure trailer fodder and not big deals at all.
Now let’s run through this season’s crew, led once again by Captain Sandy. Sandy preaches that they have her full trust and respect until they show her otherwise — who will be the first to lose it? My money’s on Nathan or Bri.
Aesha, Chief Stew: Aesha was the second stew in seasons four and five, then chief stew in both seasons of Below Deck Down Under. She and Sandy are so excited to work together again. They’ve remained friends over the years; Aesha and her boyfriend, Scott, even visited Sandy in Denver. Sandy loves that Aesha goes the extra mile to please the guests. The potential for problematic favoritism is high, folks.
Iain, Bosun: South African Iain has been working on yachts for five years. His father is a pro canoeist (thank you, Iain, for teaching me a new word), and he started working as a river guide for his dad’s company at 16. Iain’s mom is named Sandy, a fact we’ll have to unpack once we get to know him better.
Elena, a.k.a. Ellie, Second Stew: Ellie filled in for only the last charter of season seven, and it inspired her to continue working on yachts. She’s done cocktail training and prefers service over housekeeping, so Aesha puts her on nights.
Jono, Chef: Jono describes himself as a “culinary architect,” partly because he was a literal architect before becoming a chef. He filled in for a yacht-chef friend once and it turned into a career. Learning that he’s self-taught feeds my delusion that I could be a yacht chef.
Joe, Lead Deckhand: Joe is from Liverpool and lives in Spain. The crew met mere hours ago and he’s already oversharing that he loves finger blasting his bum hole before going to bed.
Nathan, Deckhand: Nathan is from a tiny Irish village of only 600 people. He tells us he likes causing trouble and doing shit he’s not meant to do. I’m sure he told the casting agents the same exact thing.
Gael, Deckhand: An Australian, Gael started as a stew but loves being outside and was drawn to the deck department. Her fellow deckhands are disappointed to learn that Gael has a second-engineer boyfriend of five months. She says she’s a relationship girl because she doesn’t like having to start over with someone new, which doesn’t convince me she likes her boyfriend that much.
Bri, Third Stew: Bri’s been in yachting for two years on smaller boats than the Mustique. She admits she has room to grow but also tells us that she wants to stay a kid forever. “The thought of taxes scare the living shit out of me.” Is this woman admitting on national television that she doesn’t pay her taxes?
The Mustique quickly lives up to its musty-sounding name because one of the crew cabins’ ceilings is leaking. Sandy hopes to have a fourth stew, but they don’t have room for one when they’re down a cabin. For cabin assignments, Aesha wisely has Gael bunk with her so she’s not rooming with her direct reports.
The team gets to work prepping the boat, but the provisions don’t arrive until after 8 p.m. Greek ferries are notoriously late, so this doesn’t seem too surprising. Worse, the delivery is only a quarter of the things Aesha needs and has no baseline alcohol. They only have one bottle of Champagne. The rest is set to come at 11:45 the next morning, even though the charter starts at noon. Sandy stays optimistic about the delay: “Pressure makes us better.” She also lays down the rules in an all-team meeting: no drinking on charter and respect each other professionally, sexually, and culturally. Speaking of sexually, Nathan’s already flirting with Gael as they unload provisions, while Bri has her eye on Joe and loves his bushy eyebrows.
The next morning, Elena inexplicably wears her Playboy bunny ears. I don’t know if this is to remind us of her prior show appearance when she wore them, to get attention from the guys, or if she just really loves costumes. She says she travels with a bunch of costumes, 10 percent of which are PG-13. It’s unclear if that means the other 90 percent are tamer or R-rated, but I’m sure we’ll find out as the season goes on.
The first guests are Gen-Z influencer Jacob Ward and his friends from London. His content seems to be fitness and cycling focused. Aesha questions what she’s doing living in a van with her boyfriend when these kids can afford a superyacht charter. Aesha is self-deprecating: she and Sandy both have more Instagram followers than Jacob (837,000 and 763,000 to his 306,000). He does have just under 400,000 on TikTok, which is perhaps where the better monetization is, and Aesha’s ready to help with taking photos and videos.
As Aesha gives the guests a tour, she lets them know they don’t have more Champagne or rosé, but it’s coming ASAP, and they can do cocktails in the meantime. The guests ask if someone can go to the store for rosé before departing, but this doesn’t come to pass. They order spicy margaritas, which will have to be without coriander because it hasn’t arrived yet either. I’m pretty sure coriander is not a necessary ingredient and Aesha didn’t need to tell the already disappointed guests they were out of yet another item.
The emergency Champagne delivery finally arrives, but there’s still no rosé or red wine, and the rest of the food isn’t coming until 7 p.m. Aesha has never had an issue like this before, and Sandy doesn’t understand either, but she’s ready to pitch in to help out the crew as needed. They set sail from Athens, heading to Aegina. Leaving the dock and the first anchor drop both go smoothly. Iain’s pleased that everyone on his team is competent.
The same can’t be said for the interior crew. Bri is tasked with steaming the guests’ clothes, and it is a struggle. As she figures out how to use the steamer, there’s a lot of beeping that makes me think an alarm in my house is going off, but thankfully it’s just incompetence 6,000 miles away. It can’t hurt me. Bri shares that she grew up with a maid and housekeeping, so this is newer to her. She spends all afternoon — SIX AND A HALF HOURS — steaming, but when the guests go to change for dinner they don’t have their clothes back. One of the guests even comes down to the laundry room to find his clothes. Aesha takes over for Bri, who “explains” that she likes taking her time to make sure she gets it right. This excuse isn’t adding up. Then Bri drops a bomb in an interview: In her two years of yachting experience, she’s never made it through a whole season! At a certain point, you have to stop and ask if a job is right for you, but Bri has not done that. Later, when she goes to deliver the clothes, she’s mixed up which clothes belong to which guests. A Below Deck yacht might be the only one that would hire her.
The editors establish such exact timelines it’s as if they’re preparing material to stand up in court. Twenty-nine minutes after the provisions were supposed to arrive, the provisioner tells Aesha they were delivered to the wrong water taxi and won’t be there until 9 p.m., when dinner is scheduled for. The guests requested surf and turf, so Jono switches the menu from lobster to crab. He’s impressively unfazed.
For dinner, Ellie quickly changes into a disco-ball top and metallic leggings to dress on theme. Aesha and Bri didn’t even change to blacks, a sign that it’s been a rough day. There’s zero wine left, but more finally arrives during dinner. Somehow, there’s still no red. Despite the lack of wine pairings, the guests are happy with the food. During dinner, Ellie pulls double duty between courses to help Bri turn down the cabins. Bri asks if a bathroom she cleaned looks okay, and Ellie kindly points out that the floors are still wet. She says not to sweat the first day — she’ll give Bri training. Aesha similarly doesn’t want to stress Bri out more and just focus on getting through the first charter. Aesha clocks out at 11:40 p.m. so she can be up early to help Bri. She’s learned that she has to trust in her stews because she can’t do everything, and she’s putting trust in Ellie.
Unfortunately for Ellie, the guests aren’t close to going to bed. They’re partying with a confetti cannon that may look great for content but looks awful to clean up. At 12:20 a.m., they ask for a mojito and late-night munchies — grilled cheese, mac and cheese, nachos, guac, etc. Ellie’s never had to make food for drunk people before and feels overwhelmed, so she wakes up Jono. Jono, half-asleep: “Mm-mm. I don’t think so.” Ellie says she’ll make grilled cheese and tell the guests that’s all they can do. Meanwhile, Gael turns on the hot tub, which seems like it should’ve already been ready. Now the mojito is 45 minutes late, and they’re asking for more cocktails. Gael radios Ellie, who comes up to explain to the guests that she’s the only one on drinks and food. Based on the time stamps we’re given, somehow this conversation takes 15 minutes?! The grilled cheese could be done in that time, and we haven’t even seen cheese hit bread yet. Ellie makes the mojitos while Gael helps with the grilled cheese a full hour after they are ordered. Ellie then tries to wake Jono up again, at 1:30 a.m. She thinks his selfish behavior is making her look bad, like she can’t manage guests. From what we’re seeing, she can’t manage them! She tells Jono this is going to be a big problem. He still refuses, saying he hasn’t slept enough. Ellie’s just wasting more time failing to convince him. She’s right that this is an issue, but based on next week’s previews, she’s wrong about which one of them will be in trouble.
