The Arabs and The Russians

So I hadn’t thought much about the fact that our next charter guests were Saudi Arabians, until my Nicoletta said to me the day before I arrived “Tiffany. The Arab women are extremely demanding and it can be quite unpleasant. This is going to be a hard charter and you will probably get very little sleep”. Oh great. And they were going to be on for 2 weeks. 2 weeks!! The only bit of good news was that they would most likely sleep at a hotel every night and only use the boat in the day (apparently this is something very common with the Arabs). I thought nah I’ll be fine, I can deal with demanding after 6 weeks of charters.  Well… nothing in this life time could prepare me for this woman.

Firstly, the day they arrive, there are 3 bags FULL just of special Arabic foods and snacks. Spices, nuts, boxes of dates, seeds, coffees, a special coffee pot and coffee cups, then also Shisha and Shisha accessories, charcoal, a special silver pot for food. Wow.

My first meeting with this woman put me off from the start. We are used to guests being at the least, polite, if not friendly. This woman was neither, especially the latter. She walked onto the boat like a diva and immediately started ordering people around pointing. She barely said hello to any of the crew or smiled. She ordered a sparkling water from me which, as I brought it to the outside lounge area, I put where she had been previously seated- she was now standing up against the side, looking at the view. She then sat at the other side of the table and yelled at me from outside in a demanding, irritated voice that would become synonymous with the trip “Excuse me?? Excuse me!!”. So I hurry outside and, not looking at me when she speaks (this also would become customary), says “Why did you being my drink and put it on the other side of the table? It must always be brought to exactly where I am sitting. Give it to me please” then glances up at me from typing on her phone and narrows her eyes. Oh my gosh. I tried to protest, saying she had not been at the table when I brought it and I apologized for putting it in the wrong place, but she just cut me off with a “Its fine, just don’t let it happen again. Now I was truly scared.

She also came with an entourage of staff. A driver, who lives in London and manages their property there and is their “PA/organizer” for anything they need there, a Saudi girl who was the maid to Madam and a Philipino nanny for the young girl. All of whom were absolutely lovely and so helpful. They taught us how madam likes things done ad would assist if we were running around like chickens without heads. They are all sooooo calm. It’s amazing. How they put up with this woman on a permanent basis is beyond me.

Over the next few days we had a lot to learn- how to brew Arabic coffee for 15mins, using 3 different spices put it at different times, how to make Turkish coffee, what different biscuits they have with each of these as well as with the red tea they also drink. Arabic coffee with a tray of assorted dates and cream, as well as sweet Arabic biscuits, in the special Arabic coffee pot, poured into the special hand painted cups, using your left hand to pour and your right hand to serve; this must be prepared by 1pm every day and served as soon as any guest walks onto the boat as a welcome drink. As they never told us when they would arrive, it was always all hands on deck, rushing around to get the snacks and coffee ready in 5mins before she started complaining about why it was taking so long. Then the Turkish coffee, served on request, with Turkish delight, and the red tea, served with more savoury biscuits like digestives. Then there was the preparation of the Shisha, which she had at 7pm every evening or on request and charcoal that you need to light for her incense. But she expects something to be done within 5mins of her request, nevermind how long the preparation time. And she will rush you to get an entire spread laid out- with Arabic coffee and dates, fruit platters, seeds and nuts that need to be on the table- also as soon as they arrive, and then 10mins later say “Please clear up this mess, can’t you see we are finished”. It was exhausting trying to make her happy. You never felt like you were on top of things.

She would walk down the passage and ask you to follow her and then literally throw a scarf or something over her shoulder “Put this away”, then point at the bed (never looking at you) “Hang those up”, “Take this outside”. Never please or thank you. And lazy. Oh my gosh. Her handbag will be 2m from her and she will call you from the other side of the room “Excuse me? Excuse me!! Can you pass my bag with my phones”. Always forgetting where she puts things and then asking us where they are, looking at us like we are completely useless if we say “I’m very sorry Madam, I’m not sure where you might have left that, we’ve had a good look and can’t seem to see it anywhere”. Only for her to discover that she left it at the hotel or something.

And they live on Arab time. Night owls. Morning shift starts at 7am, but then the children (who sleep on the boat) only wake up around 11 and then Madam and Mr only arrive at the boat at 1pm- when they have breakfast. Lunch is served around 5pm and then at 10:30pm they leave the boat for dinner. But in-between these meals are constant snacks- fruit platters, nuts, seeds, nachos, tea with savoury biscuits, Arabic coffee with sweets, Turkish coffee. It was never ending. I can’t believe how much these people ate. It was astounding. When they left at 10:30pm you were absolutely finished. But then if you worked late shift you waited up till they came home at 3:30am, often with guests, for snacks (again seeds, nuts, fruit platter, shisha) and then they stay for just half an hour then leave to go and sleep at the hotel. You get sleepy sitting in the crew mess waiting for them to get back, then as soon as someone shouts “They’re here” its panic stations and you are wide awake in 10 seconds, rushing through to light candles, put out snacks, put soft music on, before she walks on and starts complaining about where everything is. And it doesn’t matter how much you prepare in advance, you are always just never quick enough for her. It was incredibly frustrating.

I have never craved sleep so much in my life.

And always so many people! Every day they had friends over and the friends have children. Every Arab child has a nanny that travels with the family. So when Madam’s daughter wanted to invited 8 friends to the boat, it was also 8 nannies. Which made mealtimes very stressful- for us, as well as for our chef. Preparing a meal for 8 adults upstairs on the upper deck as well as different food and a table setting downstairs for all the nannies and children, with us trying to run up and down stairs, serving both parties simultaneously with numerous drink orders and requests for condiments and whatever else. I honestly felt like I was spinning most of the time. I cried 3 times in the 2 weeks from complete exhaustion and the really disrespectful ugly way this woman would talk to you. It was utterly draining. After a particularly bad day when I was feeling pretty fragile, all it took was a photo of Waffles, sent to me by my dad on whatsapp, to send me completely over the edge in a stream of tears, crying that I’d had enough of this bloody charter and I just wanted to go home to my dogs. When Nicoletta found me hiding outside the crew door, sniffing and snotting, she did all but grab me and shake me by shoulders and gave me a “pull yourself together for God’s sake!” lecture and then softened a bit and told me that it’s just one woman who we’ll never see again after a week and I shouldn’t let her get to me. That yes, she was a guest and we need to do what we can to please her, but only what is humanly possible and nothing is worth killing ourselves over, we can only do our best- as far as we can. I resolved to remember that and somehow managed to drag myself through the next week.

This charter was also the one where I did the most stress eating I’ve ever done. That, coupled with complete exhaustion (and the body’s craving for carbs. After running around like a headless chicken for 6hrs straight with Arabic coffees and trays of dates and shisha ad whatever else, a tuna salad just doesn’t do it for you) and the fact that the Arab and Lebanese sweets are to DIE for, I must have piled on around 2kg in that 2 weeks. The Lebanese sweets really are unbelievable. Mini phyllo pastries with pistachio’s or other nuts, soaked in honey. Oh my god. It was an orgasm in your mouth and pure happiness just emanated through your body as you chewed the delectable sweet. Around day 4 of stress my health campaign had gone out the window. We had zero chance to even rest in the day, nevermind for me to try and exercise. We averaged 5-6hrs sleep each a night for 2 weeks straight and IF we were lucky, we would each get maybe an hour and a half break in the day where you literally collapsed on the bed as soon as you walked into the room. I gave up trying to stick to my shake diet as it just wasn’t enough for me to go on. I was also depressed as shit so got addicted to the honey soaked Lebanese sweets as my “pick me up” when I was feeling down and tired. My hopes for having an Ibiza ‘beach ready’ body in 4 weeks’ time were now a complete dream and no longer a realistic goal. Fuck it. I had to get through this charter alive without having a complete meltdown and if this was the only way then so be it. I gave up.

I somehow managed to survive the last few days- even though we were thrown a curve ball “its my sons 20^th birthday tomorrow so I want the entire boat decorated with hundreds of balloons by tomorrow evening”. Oh God. Well somehow we managed to pull it off- running off the boat to buy balloons and decorations and bottles of helium and getting the whole crew involved at 7am to start the big setup. It was a really good effort in the end- with our chief engineer blowing the balloons up with helium and our chef and deckhand tying the ends and adding string and then the captain and Nicoletta making a giant balloon arc whilst I stuck up posters and made balloon centrepieces and god knows what else. They had about 12 birthday cakes. We had supplied 6 that all weren’t up to her standards, so she sent her driver to get another load just before the party, which she turned her nose up at aswell and then had a go at ALL of us about why are we so useless that none of us can get a grand enough birthday cake. And there were about 50 guests on board- adults, children, and nannies. It was chaos. Absolute chaos.

I’ve never been more relieved in my life when they finally left the boat. Nicoletta is pretty hard and not much gets to her, but even she cracked the one day (incredibly rare), so we wooped with joy when the car drove off into the distance and we quickly disposed with joy of anything remotely Arabic on board that would leave any reminders of the last 2 weeks nightmare.

Feeling utterly dead and in desperate need of some sleep and peace and quiet, we were dreading the next charter as they were Russians. Russians have a reputation in the yachting industry for being quite wild, and when the guests are all male, throwing massive parties where they invite loads of girls literally off the streets, onto the boat. We were expecting 5 males, hence our distress, however what an absolutely lovely surprise when we were greeted by 5 gentlemen friends in their late 40’s that just wanted to see the sites, eat good food, drink good wine and engage in conversation. About what I have no idea as it was all in Russian, but they seemed to be having a good time? It’s hard to tell with Russian men as they are quite unemotive people. The 4 who spoke no English just grunted and nodded whenever you asked them a question or brought them something and the one very cheerful man who did speak English (who was really lovely) would always order on behalf of the group. So we only ever had one person asking for things, which meant Nicoletta and I weren’t being pulled in 5 different directions and it was actually a very pleasant, relaxing charter and the guests didn’t go to bed too late.

It was also the charter where I got to see Portofino! I had heard so much about this beautiful little town so was thrilled to be able to get off and do some exploring. Pics in next blog post in the next few days!