Ten questions that have nothing to do with cooking.

01  THE CROSSING

Fourteen days, Las Palmas to Antigua. No shops, no deliveries, no resupply. Twelve crew, three meals a day, plus night watch food. You get one order. Get it wrong and you are rationing in week two. What are you ordering, and where is all of it going to live?

02  THE PREFERENCE SHEET

It lands 36 hours before the guests do. One coeliac, one keto, a nine-year-old who eats white food only, and the owner's wife: no onion, no garlic, no dairy. You are in Antigua on a Sunday. Where are you provisioning, and what do you do about the three of those that contradict each other?

03  THE MONEY

The charter has an APA. What is it, who holds it, what are you allowed to spend off it, and what happens to your boat card receipts at the end of the week?

04  THE HANDOVER

You are going on rotation. You hand your galley to a chef you have never met. What you leave behind decides whether the boat asks you back. What exactly are you leaving, and in what form?

05  THE CLAUSE

There is a clause in your contract that decides whether the boat flies you home, or just back to the port where you joined. Which one does yours say, and which one do you want?

06  THE CREW

Twelve crew eat every meal you cook for nine months. Two are vegan, the bosun trains twice a day, and the deck team eat at 11:00 and again at 16:00 because of the guest schedule. Guest food gets the applause. Crew food decides whether you have a good season. How are you feeding both?

07  THE 12:15

Lunch is set for 12:30 on the aft deck. At 12:15 the guests decide they would rather eat ashore at 14:00. What goes in the bin, what gets saved, and what are you serving at 14:00 that does not look like reheated lunch?

08  THE JET

The owner flies out tomorrow morning and wants food for the plane. There is no real oven up there and nobody to plate it. What are you sending, and how is it packed so it is still worth eating three hours later?

09  THE FREEZER

Day six of the crossing. The compressor packs up. Nine days to Antigua. What do you cook first, what do you save, and who do you tell?

10  THE FIRST TEN MINUTES

You step aboard. Someone gives you a ten-minute handover and uses the words preference sheet, watch duties, stamped in, cabin inspection and APA. You nod. How many of those five did you just lie about?

Most chefs get two or three.

The good ones get four and go quiet.

That is not a knock on your cooking. None of this happens in a restaurant, so there was nowhere you could have learned it.

Cooking is about 20% of this job. The other 80% is everything you just read, and it is what decides whether you last a season or get asked back.

Seven of my forty videos are about getting hired. The other thirty-three are about what happens after.

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