The Yachtie Life Cycle
#26/0325. With Courtesy of Erica Lay & The Mallorca Bulletin. Erica Lay is owner of EL CREW International Yacht Crew Agency http://www.elcrewco.com/ erica@elcrewco.com.
The Yachtie Lifecycle: From Crew House to Country House
There is a fairly well-established lifecycle among yacht crew who come to Mallorca. Nobody plans it, obviously. They arrive in Palma in their twenties with a bag, an STCW certificate and the firm belief that they’re only here for a season. Fast forward fifteen or twenty years and there’s a reasonable chance they’re living somewhere in the middle of the island with a partner, two dogs and strong opinions about the best place to buy firewood. Somewhere along the way, Mallorca got them.
It generally begins in a crew house, that great yachting rite of passage where several complete strangers are thrown together on bunk beds while competing for jobs, fridge space and access to the washing machine. Everyone has recently arrived, nobody has much money yet and friendships form at extraordinary speed. Days are spent dockwalking, visiting agencies and trying to get that first break; evenings are considerably less productive. Your social circle can go from zero to twenty within a week, largely because nobody knows anybody else either. People come and go constantly as jobs are found, seasons begin and someone inevitably announces on Tuesday that they’re flying to Antibes tomorrow.
Then comes the first proper yacht job and, eventually, the first signs that Mallorca might be becoming something more than somewhere you pass through between contracts. You start knowing your way around Palma without Google Maps. You have favourite restaurants. People recognise you in bars. You stop saying you’re “based nowhere really” and start describing Mallorca as home, even though technically most of your possessions are still crammed into a crew cabin.
A few years pass and the crew house starts losing its appeal. Sharing one bathroom with six people no longer feels quite as hilarious as it did at 23, and the prospect of having an actual sofa becomes strangely exciting. Perhaps there’s a partner now, often another yachtie, because the chances of maintaining a relationship with somebody who doesn’t understand why you might disappear to Sardinia with twelve hours’ notice are fairly slim. There may even be talk of moving ashore one day, although everybody insists they’re definitely going to do “just a couple more years” first. Those couple of years have been known to last a decade.
Eventually, Palma itself can start feeling a little hectic. The bars and restaurants that were once the entire point of living there are still lovely, but suddenly you’re wondering whether you really need them on your doorstep. You’d quite like some space. Maybe a terrace. Somewhere to park. Then somebody mentions Alaró, Santa Maria, Calvia, Algaida or one of the other towns and villages inland, and before you know it you’re scrolling through property listings featuring exposed stone walls and phrases like “rustic charm”.
This is usually where the transformation gathers pace. A dog appears. Possibly two. Bicycles multiply in the garage. Weekends that once revolved around where everyone was going out now involve trips to garden centres, walks in the countryside and conversations about whether it’s too early to light the wood burner. The person who once came home at 5am is now getting up at 6am voluntarily because apparently that’s the best time to hike before it gets warm. Even more alarming, they’re happy about it.
Not everyone follows the exact same route, of course, and plenty of crew come to Mallorca, enjoy a few brilliant seasons and move on. But after almost twenty years working around the industry, I’ve watched an extraordinary number arrive here intending to stay briefly and somehow build an entire life instead. Yachting brought them to Mallorca, but careers evolve, people move ashore, businesses are started, children arrive and priorities change. Mallorca, meanwhile, quietly stops being the place where they work and becomes the place they want to come back to.
Every spring, another wave of young crew arrives in Palma dragging suitcases behind them, looking for their first job and asking where everyone goes out. They have absolutely no intention of settling down here.
Give them twenty years.
They’ll be living in the countryside wondering who’s going to feed the chickens while they’re away.
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