Behind Ocean Lines: The Invisible Price of Accommodating Luxury

By Melanie White

An ex-yacht chef uncovers the dark reality of life at sea.

By the age of twenty-two, Melanie is ticking life's boxes as if filling in a routine survey. Good grades at school? Check. Reliable university degree? Check. Steady graduate job? Check. Her two feet are planted firmly on solid ground; her life to date p

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melanie White
• Release date: Oct 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781739907631

Melanie White

Melanie White spent five years in her twenties crewing superyachts for charter and regatta racing across the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, and the Arctic. Since leaving her career as a full-time yacht chef, she has been committed to improving mental health awareness and suicide prevention. She landed the role of policy advisor for the UK Chamber of Shipping, specialising in employment, health, and safety, and in 2020 co-founded Seas The Mind, an organisation dedicated to creating mentally healthy and resilient yacht crew through Mental Health First Aid training. In addition to her work in the maritime sector, she is training to become a counsellor. In 2022 she gave birth to her first child, Alfred. Behind Ocean Lines is her first book.

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Preface

This story is set at sea, but this story matters on land. Or perhaps more accurately, this story should matter on land. Why? Because the vast majority of people who work – and therefore live – at sea do so to facilitate and improve the lives of those who live ashore. Often to their own detriment. For some, at the cost of their own lives.

In the UK, 90% of everything we consume daily from food to clothes to medicines comes to us via sea. What was your thought the last time you clicked ‘shipping’ on your online order? I bet it was I wonder if I’ll be in to receive the delivery as opposed to I wonder who is sailing my [insert latest purchase] from [insert country of manufacture]. Seafarers bring all of this to our doorsteps. We may buy fair trade goods, but are the people who carry the cargo treated fairly?

When the world was plunged into various lockdowns in 2020, people ashore experienced what it’s like to be confined to their own house (boat), to their own room (cabin), with the same people (crew) day-in and day-out. For some, exercise was restricted, or they weren’t able to be with the people they loved, or they couldn’t get the medical care they required. Remarkably, perhaps for the first time in history, if you experienced any of this you have stepped into the shoes of what it can mean to be a seafarer.

In March 2021, the UK government published the COVID-19 mental health and wellbeing recovery action plan to prevent, mitigate and respond to the mental health impacts of the pandemic during 2021 to 2022, recognising that there was likely to be a strain placed on NHS mental health services due to the isolation and abnormal restrictions. Quite right too. At the same time, seafarers – who have been experiencing restrictions such as this for years as part of their job – still depend on a satellite phone (if they have access to one) to a welfare helpline to discuss mental health issues, share suicidal thoughts or speak about their bereavement when a crew member has taken their own life.

If someone dies by suicide on land, who recovers the body? The emergency services. If someone takes their own life at sea, who recovers the body? Another seafarer. It’s difficult to support someone experiencing a decline in their mental wellbeing ashore, so imagine how many more hurdles there are to support someone at sea. It’s not going to happen overnight and we’re not going to always get it ‘right’, but increasing awareness of the mental health challenges seafarers face is a start, and therefore I am sharing my story.

Long before the pandemic, when I experienced depression at sea and had suicidal thoughts, I felt helpless, daunted, and I was terrified of speaking up. This is the point where I tell you that I worked as a chef in the luxury yachting industry. That glittering, elusive beast. Far removed from the delivery of your everyday ‘essentials’. Instead, I served haute cuisine to some of the wealthiest people on the planet.

What of the luxury yachting industry? Working conditions are surely better!? Many articles have attempted to burst the bubble. Young people have chased the glamour and adventure which has led to wondrous enjoyment (me included) and a considerable dent in their mental wellbeing along the way (me included). The super-rich pay for invisibility in a world where the media hounds them and steals their privacy out of curiosity, jealousy and infatuation. Also often at the cost of their mental wellbeing. Unfortunately, the cost of protecting their invisibility at sea cloaks the crew from being seen and heard; crew who could be experiencing abuse and a decline in their mental wellbeing. Maintaining the privacy of the luxury yachting industry renders it near impossible for crew to find support. Those that do will undoubtedly do so at the expense of their job. Did the #MeToo movement scratch the surface? No. Are people experiencing abuse at anchor? Certainly. Do luxurious surrounds negate the mental toll of life at sea? Absolutely not. But so long as the crew are out of sight, they are out of mind.

I entered my career at sea completely unaware of my rights. International conventions and policies are largely understood by specialist lawyers, academics and policy experts; little did I know that I was protected by the same laws in the luxury yachting industry as those applicable to merchant seafarers delivering your latest electricals. Since exiting my career as a full-time seafarer, I made it my aim to properly understand these conventions as a policy advisor for the UK Chamber of Shipping, specialising in employment, health and safety. During the pandemic, I was fortunate to take a position alongside someone who worked on the original drafting and negotiations of The Maritime Labour Convention (2006) (MLC). The MLC is the sole global instrument that protects the welfare and employment rights of the estimated 1.89 million seafarers working on commercial vessels. A commercial vessel being anything from a container ship delivering goods to a charter yacht entertaining celebrities.

Updating and amending an international convention such as the MLC is incredibly long-winded and complex, with suggested amendments taking years to implement and the effects of such changes taking many more years to feel on board a boat in the middle of the Atlantic. While I believe statutory instruments are crucial in the application of human rights at sea, there is no doubt that they alone are not enough to protect seafarers. It takes education and a cultural shift in the mental health narrative to save lives.

According to the statistics, which given the uniqueness of the industry are exceedingly hard to collect, the number of seafarers experiencing depression is one in four, which is comparable to shoreside statistics (possibly not enough to prick your ears). Critically, while just under 1% of deaths in the UK are recorded to be suicides, it is estimated that six times as many deaths at sea are attributable to suicide. When suspicious deaths and suspected suicides are included, for example someone jumping overboard, the figure would be in excess of fifteen times the UK figure.

To improve the accuracy of such statements, in 2022 there has been a suggested amendment to the MLC to request each government that has ratified the convention to record deaths at sea to the International Labour Organisation, a UN entity. While suicides might finally fall under the scope of this MLC amendment, it would take at least two years to come into effect, and the reality of recording such a statistic is complex. You might have a Filipino seafarer, employed by a Guernsey crewing company, die on a Panamanian-flagged vessel owned by an American company, in UK territorial waters. It would be easy for the recording of this statistic to fall through the cracks. Though I do believe statistics all have their place, what good are they without a call to action? And in the years of trying to build this data – who is listening?

Crucially, whether you want to remain blind to it or not, people are taking their lives at sea.

In my experience, the deterioration of mental wellbeing from depression to suicide escalates much more quickly at sea than on land. As it does, seafarers are calling for support – seafarer welfare helplines and chaplaincies are experiencing a higher volume of calls from seafarers experiencing suicidal thoughts, even more so with some trapped at sea for beyond a year throughout the pandemic; shipowners are calling for guidance; and the public remain uninformed and idle.

My experience of life at sea grew, as did my understanding of my own mental health. But in one scenario I could have acted on my intrusive thoughts and might not be here to share my story. This is exactly why I must tell it. Every suicide is preventable (at shore and at sea), but so long as we remain unaware, seafarers will not receive the support they deserve. With any hope this story will be the drop in the ocean that starts a ripple effect of awareness.

Melanie White

London

August 2022

Prologue

There is nothing like light skipping across the wrinkles of the ocean – a beam, connecting you to the horizon, charging you up. It’s on days like this, when the weather is fair and the deck is warm, that seafarers have the world’s most beautiful asset to themselves. The ocean.

In the galley – our on-board kitchen – I drape a tea towel over a bowl of dough and wedge it securely behind the raised rim of the shelf to rise. Given it’s a flat, smooth day at sea, I’m baking fresh bread for the crew. Partly for them, partly to keep up my muscle memory. We have fifteen days before any guests are due on board, but once we start our summer charter season I will need to be baking fresh bread for guests every day for four months. They’ll be paying tens of thousands and expecting high-end fine dining to match. It’ll be no good if I’ve lost my edge. I pause and gaze past the bowl, out of my small galley window. Water skims past the hull and I smile as I chomp on my last piece of toast. The weather’s calm enough to get the toaster out! Small luxuries.

I emerge on deck to take my three-hour watch. I check the monitor. Our heading is towards Sicily, with the eventual endpoint of Montenegro. Next, the Automatic Identification System. The nearest vessel is four hours away. Not quite four days like it could be in the Atlantic, but still. On land, how often are we four hours away from anyone? On this day, I have the best job in the world, guardian to a luxury yacht that, much like any human, has her own quirks and beauty. For centuries seafarers have referred to vessels as females. This yacht, she’s coped with a lot already, and when guests aren’t about I find myself patting her affectionately. With a lack of wind we dropped the mainsail, and to make our voyage deadline the engine is on, its dulcet hum largely masked by the gentle lapping of waves. If the breeze fills in, I’ll tell the boys, but it isn’t forecast within my watch window.

As I look around, the sea twinkles under the creamy haze of the sun. That’s it. That’s all I can see. All four miles to the horizon line, for 360 degrees. I am used to it, this vast expanse of solitude, and I feel slightly disappointed that the magnitude of it doesn’t have the effect of taking my breath away anymore. It’s now normal.

I laugh to myself. How on earth is this my life? Constant travel. The Caribbean, the Mediterranean, the Arctic. The fabled ocean that every sailor wants to tick off their list is the Pacific, and now I wonder, isn’t it just this? Three-hundred-and-sixty-degree, four-mile blue. Sure, I get it. The Pacific is vaster, and every time you reach land, you’ve done the equivalent of an Atlantic crossing. But inevitably you’re just riding the same 360-degree, four-mile expanse; this perimeter of sight always restricts you. You can only see so far, and this is the limit.

Is this horizon boundary exactly how we live our lives? Blinded by and fearful of that which we cannot see? Sure, we can have a passage plan, but then what? The weather might shift and we may end up in a week-long storm. Confined to the boundary we’re in, we want to know what is in the next bit because maybe it’s better. Or maybe it’s worse. We have no choice but to accept our current three-sixty-four for what it is, and yet so many of us struggle to sit still within this perimeter and let life play out. On this day, I’m comfortable to sit in it. Delighted to sit in it, in fact.

If only every day were like this.

Part 1

Surface Waves

Hi

I’m Mel. Bold start. Straight in there with first name introductions, but we’re going to get close between these pages. You’re going to see life through my eyes and for that we need to be on a first-name basis. So, hi, pleased to meet you.

I haven’t always been bold. What you should know is I have been, for a long time, a helpaholic. I had a disease to please. There. I said it. Phew. I am otherwise known as a pushover, giver and relentless smiler. It’s exhausting.

Somebody I loved more than anything once said, You need to learn to be more selfish. Short of wondering how exactly my parents had gone so far wrong, the words stuck. Can selflessness be such a fundamental flaw in human nature? I would say yes to everyone, regularly competing against my own needs to please others, and I found my workload doubled day-by-day as I agreed to others dumping their favours on me until inevitably I burnt out. You too? Good, that means we’re going to get along.

Shoreside

I spent my first twenty-two years in a category I was utterly unaware of. It has nothing to do with race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, education or wealth, and I’m going to hazard a guess and say that you are in that class too. There’s no need to worry or search for the tick box on a health questionnaire or government survey. It’s a fantastic class to be in, and that’s because I defy anyone you know to find a way to discriminate, heckle or segregate you because of it.

You and 7.89811 billion people are ‘shoreside’. This term is liberally handed out by seafarers, classifying people that live, work and generally exist on land. You may be thinking, come on, Mel, round it up. But I can’t. Sure, it is estimated that 7.9 billion people currently inhabit planet Earth, but that 0.00189 billion that should be rounded up are at sea. That’s nothing, round it up, you say. But that’s 1.89 million people! And those 1.89 million people are saying, Oh yeah, Karen? Yeah, she’s shoreside.

I’ve often wondered why we’ve called our planet Earth. Why not Ocean? In the most unscientific way, I believe it’s this: humans think the world revolves around them, and so we’ve labelled it as such to highlight our importance. As a result, we’ve ignored 71% of our planet’s make-up in the process. So we may unequivocally never forget that it’s all about us.

Less than 0.03% of Earth’s population occupies 71% of our planet’s space – how mental is that? But before I bore you with more statistics, I’m going to cut shoresiders some slack. Everything about our genetic make-up and evolution leads to concrete evidence that we should live on land. We have legs, not fins. We have lungs, not gills. We have toes, not webbed feet.

So, what on earth would lead me to the ocean?

I had no idea I was ‘shoreside’. I was living my life exactly as I should be, where I should be, on dry land. On a fragment of the globe called England, and I was doing perfectly well at following the rules. I went to school; I got good grades. I went to university; I got a good job. I was ticking life’s boxes, so why step outside the reassuring order of them?

Aspiration

Sailing was not on my to-do list. I wanted to be a teacher. Before that, I wanted to be a nurse. Before that, I wanted to be an astronaut. Yes, you heard me. I was six years old, hanging out in my nineties vest and knickers with the day of the week on, walking along my bedroom windowsill looking up at the moon and thinking, I want to be on there. Then, registering how far from home I’d be, my aspiration plummeted back to Earth. I promptly jumped onto my bed and tucked myself under the covers.

I’ll be a nurse like Mum, and for years this was the plan. I wanted to be like her. My mum had a knack for being perfect, at least in my eyes. She worked night shifts and then looked after my sister and me during the day. She had endless crafty talents. Knitting school cardigans, face painting at birthday parties, making dresses for my teddies, sewing elaborate costumes for Victorian history day at school. Saxon day, World War II day, ‘Best of British’ Golden Jubilee day. The list goes on.

But as I unknowingly played the last day of my childhood, my aspirations changed once more. With teenage mist descending and love for lie-ins on the rise, nursing seemed far too much effort. I’ll be a teacher; they get long holidays, I thought. *Insert eye roll here.*

Perfectly matched

Teenage mist well and truly had descended and with it came the hormones. Now I don’t want to create some boring plot they tell you to avoid when writing, but this bit is important. I fell in love. It makes me cringe now, but it’s unavoidable and a linchpin in my story. So here goes.

He was six foot with green eyes and brown hair. Another thing they tell you never to write. A bland description but let me colour him in. I met him when his hair was too long, and soon into our relationship I named the first piece of stubble on his chin Stanley. He has lots of Stanleys now.

We met at an ‘alcohol-free’ sixth form party at the local club. Of course, topped up on a couple of bottles of WKD, as wasted as we thought we were, my friends and I felt like grown-ups in a sea of spotty teenagers.

As would become standard on future boozy nights out, I lost my friends reasonably early on, having gone to the bar (at least I could LOOK cool swigging out of a bottle even if I could only order J20). I went to the dance floor to hunt for them. I found a guy from my science class and poked him to say hello and asked if he’d seen any of them.

Nah, but you can hang out with us! He casually stuck his hand out gesturing to the boys at his side who were dancing like goofballs, pushing and shoving to get each other in trouble with a few of the more pretentious folk that frequented the ‘cool’ side of the common room.

The tune changed to a more manic ‘Chelsea Dagger’, and the boys started linking arms to can-can in a circle. A stranger took me by the waist and hooked me in, looked down and smiled. He had a gap between his front two teeth. Perfectly matched, together yet apart. I got that nervous achy feeling in my stomach. Maybe I’d find my friends, let them know where I was and come straight back.

I stuck my fingers up to my science bud who was opposite. Two minutes, I’ll be back! I yelled.

Eventually I found the girls. Giving them the full debrief, I looked back into the swelling dance floor to point him out. I couldn’t see him.

Go back and find him! they shouted over the music, manoeuvring me by the shoulders and unsubtly nudging me on my way.

Trying to hide my nerves, I returned the route I’d left the dance floor, but it was busier than before. Something popular had come on, and I squeezed between bumping shoulders and over-sprayed hair as I wormed my way through. I stopped. I’m sure we’d been here. I spun around on the spot. The music faded into nothing; the room moved in slow motion; the crowd in front of me parted. The spotlight shone. And there he was, kissing the French exchange student.

Bugger!

Dating

I’d been on a few dates by the time I was seventeen. They ranged in cringeworthiness, and often centred around the local cinema. Maybe these boys sensed it was the only way to shut me up? I found myself idiotically dating older guys, you know, the ‘more mature’ kind. They were the grand old ages of oh, he’s on his gap year. But they never led to anything meaningful. Not really. The thing was, I didn’t know how to handle the attention. I didn’t know how to have a boyfriend.

No subtitles

The guy from the party must have been a mirage on the horizon. A couple of months had passed, and I was now stood with my friend Sarah in the packed common room, discussing if we should get tattoos. Both of us were seriously considering them but dubious whether the other meant it. As she weighed up the benefits of quotes versus Chinese symbols, he walked in.

It’s him! I blurted out, hoping no one else had heard me.

It’s who?

That guy from the party!

Who?

That guy over there with the brown hair, with the big fella. I made sure I was using hushed tones. We were dancing. I left to find you girls, remember, and when I got back, he was—

Oh yeah!

Finally!

Wait, that was him? I know him! They were in middle school with me. I’m better friends with his mate, Jake. He’s larger than life. But George… she looked at me, mischief in her eyes, George is quiet. I sat next to him in year 9 geography. He didn’t say one word all year.

She waved at them.

Stop it!

I’ll introduce you. She winked. It turned out Jake was the brains and Sarah, being in the top set for every subject, knew him well.

As the boys picked through the common room, Sarah quizzed me about the exchange student. She was taking A-level French.

Was she short with fluffy hair?

Yes!

That was Amelie. She was sweet, super quiet though, so I imagine a date with them would be like watching a black and white film with no subtitles…

Hi, I said, turning red. They’d reached us.

Hey Jake! Sarah hugged him. Hi George. Guys, this is Mel.

Kiss

Our first date was at the cinema. Classic. It’s a good thing I’m a talker because it was a two-and-a-half-mile walk, and Sarah was right. THIS BOY SAID NOTHING. After painfully picking the movie – You pick. No, it’s okay, you pick. Yes, I’ve got five words out of him – we finally selected a film which is to date the worst American comedy I’ve ever wasted my money on. We should have known, considering Seth Rogan’s face was plastered all over the poster.

When we entered the screen, I felt relieved I didn’t have to fill any more silence. I couldn’t work him out. Was he just shy? Was he regretting spending time with me? What is with this guy?

I spent the entire film trying to figure out whether he was going to make a move. Literally. He’s going to run out. It was a legitimate worry as, during a previous visit here, my date had forgotten to put a parking ticket on his car and ran out on me, without explaining, mid-film. Except it would be worse this time; George would be rejecting me.

But then he put his arm around me, and I tucked into him. I distinctly heard his heart beating. Mel, as if, I hear you cry. But I could. This guy had a particularly thumpy heart, or ‘lub-dub’, the official sound, as George later corrected me. He had a very steady, strong heartbeat. He says it’s so loud he can hear it in his head, and when the world is quiet, I can feel it in his fingertips. This boy, in all his seriousness, was steady. Reassuringly steady. But no, no kiss in the cinema, and he said little when we left.

I’d lost all hope of his interest as he walked me to the train station, but then he asked, Do you want my cardigan? The temperature had dropped, and yes, you did read that right, it does say cardigan. It was that 2009 grandad fashion phase.

Yes, please.

He loves me.

Silence again as we walked.

He loves me not.

Do you want your cardigan back? I asked as we reached the platform.

Mmm, yeah, I do need to walk home now.

He definitely loves me not.

Okay, I peeled it off. Bye then.

What’s this? Is he? He’s going in for a kiss!

He loves me.

Wrong.

George went for a hug. I went for a kiss, and it landed awkwardly on his ear. Mel, you absolute embarrassment. I fled onto the train.

HE LOVES ME NOT.

Love

He loves me.

George walked into school the next day boasting a successful date to Jake.

We kissed.

I walked into school expressing sheer embarrassment.

He went for a hug. I went for a kiss. The guy doesn’t talk. It was a nightmare.

Sarah and Jake compared notes and reported back. It turns out I was the perfect date for a quiet guy.

There weren’t any awkward silences. She filled them.

Unbeknown to me, the gateway to life at sea started there. He had one solid passion off the rugby pitch, and that was sailing. It wasn’t just a hobby. He wanted it to be his career. So perhaps from the moment our seventeen-year-old selves ‘put a label on it’ I also signed a contract to the sea. It seems these days the most terrible thing for a modern woman to own up to is that a man opened the door to their career. He may have opened the door, but I chose to walk through it.

The rest, they say, is history. It wasn’t love at first sight. We grew into it, the love thing, together. We worked on it, daily, for over ten years. It morphed and shimmered, and some days it felt like catching a rainbow, others like cradling a five-litre hot water bottle. I rarely thought of throwing him overboard. Honest.

But I have a theory, you see. The secret to a long-lasting relationship is to evolve and realign at the same rate. People do not stay the same. Neither should we expect them to. He might change, and I have to meet that; and then I might change, and he meets me. Maybe one day you can’t meet each other anymore.