British couple Lily Davison and Nik Dorward are the faces that’ll greet you when you board the Sailing Location, a private luxury yacht that takes passengers around the Bahamas for $34,000 per trip.
Davison, who starred in the eighth season of “Below Deck Med,” a reality show about staff who work on luxury yachts and serve demanding clients, now works primarily as the private chef on board Sailing Location.
But because it is a two-person crew working a 55-foot yacht, the couple wears multiple hats. They do everything from cleaning and steering the boat to acting as tour guides and taking their guests snorkeling and spearfishing.
It’s a demanding job: The couple works 16-hour days for 18 weeks a year. But they say it tops all the other hospitality jobs they’ve held.
Life working on board a luxury yacht
The crew takes guests on eight-day trips in the Bahamas, starting from Nassau, New Providence, to the Exumas islands.
They do two trips a month during their sailing season, which lasts nine months from November to July.
Dorward started working on the yacht in April 2022. Davison joined him in October that year, and they started dating shortly after.
Their yacht has a maximum capacity of eight guests, who are housed in four guest rooms — a large queen owner’s suite and three queen guest suites.
The yacht also has a large upper deck, a lounging area, an open kitchen, and a convertible saloon area, which can be opened for 180-degree open-air dining.
Davison, 25, told BI that the couple steers the yacht to the Bahamas’ most “Instagrammable” locations.
These include sights like Pablo Escobar’s sunken plane at Norman’s Cay, swimming with nurse sharks at Compass Cay, seeing the filming location of James Bond’s “Thunderball” in Staniel Cay, and feeding the Exumas’ iconic swimming pigs.
A large chunk of their clientele is American, given Nassau’s proximity to Florida.
Long days for the two-men crew
The duo wakes up at 6:30 a.m. every day before their guests rise. The first task on Davison’s schedule is to prepare a hot meal for them as soon as they are up.
Being a private chef on a yacht in remote islands means she must thoroughly prepare in the days before each voyage. She gets her guests’ dietary requirements and other food specifications in advance, which allows her to plan the meals.
“We go to the most remote islands you could probably ever go to, and so we have to buy everything before,” Davison said. “I plan my list and literally triple-check it because once we’re at sea, there is really no place to get anything.”
After breakfast is done, she clears it down and sets the table with Dorward’s help. She then jumps straight into preparing lunch, followed by a snack, dessert, and dinner. Besides cooking and steering, the two also work hard to keep their guests entertained.
“We take people snorkeling probably twice a day,” Dorward, 32, said. “We’ll do wakeboarding and tubing off the boat, and take them spear fishing.”
Even after it’s dark and their duties are winding down, Davison said she tries to keep things interactive with the guests by hosting game nights “just to make sure everyone’s having a great time.”
They normally work until 9 p.m. when their guests retire to their suites, but Davison said they are technically on call 24 hours a day, for eight days straight.
Tops other hospitality jobs
Before getting the yacht job, the couple both worked in several hospitality gigs, from teaching sailing to working in the food and beverage industry.
But they say that working on board the Sailing Location is the best hospitality job they’ve had despite the long hours and strenuous work.
For one, their living expenses are low, because on the boat, they don’t need to pay rent.
They do need to pay for their own food and drinks, which they estimate comes to around $500 a month per person.
Dorward told BI that being on the yacht is a great job “if you can take the hit of being away from people like your family.”
And they haven’t had any nightmare guests, Davison said, unlike when she was on “Below Deck Med.”
“One of the guests was so drunk he came into our cabins all the time when we were trying to sleep,” Davison said.
But mostly, the experience of being on the yacht itself is rewarding, Davison said.
“I love it because yet to be on the water all the time, and you’re basically living on a beautiful boat and in a beautiful place,” she said.
