My dream job left me all at sea
When Melanie White was hired to work on a luxury yacht, she thought a life of glamorous adventure would follow. Instead, the demands of the job and the pressure cooker existence quickly took a serious toll on her mental health. Here, she tells us her stor
Stirring a sloshing pot of soup in the belly of a boat being rocked by 52-knot winds and crashing waves is not the usual setting for a job interview.
But for former yacht chef Melanie White, being thrown – quite literally – into the deep end, was all in a day’s work.
“I’d been on a boat just five times before I applied for the job,” says Melanie, 30. George, her boyfriend at the time, worked for a boat building company and found the pair an opportunity to work together at sea.
“I was desperate to leave my graduate publishing desk job, but I was green during the interview. Everyone on the boat – a 70ft sailing yacht in the Irish sea – was being sick,” says Melanie.
“A mayday call came in from a nearby sinking ship during the interview. When they asked me, ‘Where do you want to be in five years?’, all I could think was, ‘Anywhere but here’.”
But Melanie, then 22, stayed and began a seafaring career that would last five years, until November 2019.
Her family weren’t surprised when she told them her plans.
“I hitchhiked 1,200 miles for charity when I was 19, from Leeds to Morocco, so they were used to my hare-brained schemes,” says Melanie, a single mum who now lives in the South East with her seven-month-old son, Alf.
“Also, I was doing it with George, so they were quite relaxed about it.”
Leaving dry land behind for 11 months of the year, Melanie worked and lived on board the yacht, with just a handful of weekends off in between. She sailed around the Caribbean, the Arctic and the Mediterranean, stewardessing and doing deck work, then later working as a chef, serving food to wealthy and demanding guests.
“We got really interesting characters on board – very wealthy, but also very adventurous as we were sailing in dangerous waters.”
In total, Melanie sailed 40,000 miles – enough to go round the world twice – and slowly grew in confidence.
“Because the boat becomes your home, you start to trust that it’s going to keep you safe. And it did, despite some rather hairy storms,” she says.
“I’d only had the basic seafaring training, and three weeks of basic chef training – but I learned on the job and began to thrive.”
While on board Melanie got to see some truly awe-inspiring sights. “I loved the blue sky days, exploring the markets of Montenegro, Croatia, Corfu, Mallorca and Italy, and searching for ingredients for dinner.
“The guests could be quite specific about what they wanted – grouper, king crab, reindeer – sometimes I was searching for the impossible.”
“We took the boat to regattas, too, and raced which was really good fun.
“Out on the water I loved seeing pods of dolphins. One time, near the Bay of Biscay, we saw a huge humpback whale.”
But existing in such a small space came at a cost.
“For better or worse, the crew become your family. And while sometimes this was brilliant, there were times when it was pretty awful too,” says Melanie, whose mental health began to suffer around six months into her seafaring career.
“George and I were bullied by some other crew members for several months. It was vocal, demeaning bullying. It began subtly, then became more threatening. We were told, ‘You won’t get another job’ and ‘This is it for you’. And when you’re in that environment, you start to believe it. “When working on board you physically can’t go anywhere. And when your working day is over, you still can’t go anywhere. It becomes a pressure cooker.” Melanie began to feel depressed, to the point where she even contemplated taking her own life. “I felt that I didn’t feel at home at sea and I didn’t feel at home on land – so where did I belong?
“You’re isolated from friends and family, and don’t have access to the support you might have on land. I began to have suicidal thoughts and wondered if I should end it.”
She opened up to George, but feared saying too much.
“I was worried for myself. But I was also worried that if I admitted just how much I was struggling I would lose my job. There’s a lot of shame surrounding suicidal thoughts. And that means people don’t come forward when they’re contemplating it,” Melanie explains.
Thankfully, when at her lowest ebb, a crew change altered the work environment and drew Melanie back from the brink.
“It was like the darkness lifted and it was a fresh start. The captain changed, and so did the whole ethos on the boat. The environment turned into a kinder one, and I began to rebuild myself and my life,” she says.
Melanie remained on the boat for several more years, until 2019, when she began writing her book, Behind Ocean Lines, which was published recently.
“I wrote the first third while still on board in snatched spare moments and rare afternoons off,” she says.
“I started writing it for myself, to work out what had happened to me. And by the time I finished it I realised there was a bigger message about the picture of mental health at sea. I’d like to shine a light on it for others.”
In November 2019, Melanie stepped off the boat for the last time. George stayed on board, and in early 2020 the couple parted ways.
Back on land, Melanie took a job as a policy adviser for the UK Chamber of Shipping, specialising in employment health and safety at sea, and in 2020 co-founded charity Seas the Mind, alongside fellow former yacht chef Emma Ross, which provides mental health first aid training and support for those at sea.
“It’s what was missing when I was suicidal at sea,” says Melanie.
Now mum to Alf, Melanie says she would be happy if her son decided to follow in her footsteps and opt for a life at sea.
“It’s a wonderful job if your team is right,” she says. “I’d tell him to go for it, but to find his tribe and to remember to look at the horizon.
“In five whole years I never did get over the seasickness.”
■■Behind Ocean Lines by Melanie White (£16.99, Lemon Quartz) is out now. Visit seasthemind.co.uk for more information
The shame around suicidal thoughts means people don’t come forwards