Below Deck Mediterranean Season 9, Episode 12 Recap: Managing the Medicane

Welcome to the Below Deck Mediterranean Season 9, Episode 12 recap! In this week’s episode, called “The Perfect Storm,” Joe breaks his date with Ellie. Bri pumps the brakes when she realizes he’s just playing with both of them, and Nathan takes Gael rock-climbing. There’s a leak in the forward crew cabin, as a huge Medicane storm keeps the boat on the dock. Here are some of the highlights from Below Deck Med Season 9, Episode 12.

Joe Bradley backs out of the date with Elena Dubiach on Below Deck Mediterranean

Picking up from where we left off last week, Joe is explaining to Ellie that he really doesn’t want to go on a date with her, even though he already said yes.

“It’s just too much pressure,” he explains. “I don’t want to date.”

Even though she says she just wanted to get to know him better, she assures Joe that it’s all fine. They don’t have to go on a date.

Whew! Joe is relieved, but it remains to be seen how Ellie’s going to handle this unexpected disappointment.

After Joe leaves her cabin, Ellie interviews, “He liked me enough to make out with me a few days ago. But now you don’t like me enough to get to know me as a person and talk to me?”

“I can understand why some spiders eat their mate after mating,” she adds.

After overhearing Joe explaining his feelings to Nathan, Gael says, “Joe is being a little bit of a d*ck. He is choosing what he wants when he wants it, without considering how it affects the girls. It’s just not nice anymore. I’m losing respect for Joe in that sense.”

Surprisingly, Bri takes Ellie’s side, too. “I’m not surprised that Joe said no [to the date],” she says. “But he should have said no first, instead of saying yes. I feel sorry for Ellie. This is what annoys me: he’ll start something, but he’ll never finish it.”

Bri Muller sees Joe Bradley’s true colors

Ellie and Bri have a sit down after dinner. Bri apologizes “for the whole Joe thing.”

“Honestly, he really hurt my feelings today,” Ellie responds.

“He’s playing with both of us,” Bri says. “I think he likes chasing.” Bri calls him “a flea” that hops back and forth but is of no consequence.

But when Bri goes to the loo, Joe follows her and starts “chasing” again. “Hellooooooo!” he says flirtatiously.

“Oh, God!” Bri mutters to herself, sounding really drunk.

“Why did your face drop when you seen me?” Joe asks her.

“You picked a side,” she says. “Don’t give me the eyes.”

“I only give you the eyes,” he flirts, “because you’re giving me these eyes, man. And you know how to work them eyes.”

“F*ck off,” she answers. “I want to hook up with you so bad.”

So he goes into the bathroom stall with her, and you can hear him say, “Find a position. Get your f*cking skirt up.” They’ve forgotten they’re miked, and we can hear everything.

When he claims he doesn’t know what he’s doing, Bri adds, “Then I’ll make the decision, if you don’t know. I’m not having this. For real. If you can’t be a man, I will be.” And with that, she kicks him out of her bathroom stall. Good job, Bri.

“In every way possible, Joe is not good for me,” Bri interviews. “It’s feeding into my impulsiveness. It’s not making me a good human.”

When it’s time to go back to the boat, Joe and Bri are sitting at opposite ends of the van’s bench seat. She’s as far away from him as she can get.

“Bri, I’m sorry,” Joe says.

“Whatever,” she replies as he helps her out of the van.

Nathan makes a date

After dinner, Nathan finally makes his move with Gael. He asks if she’d like to “get off the boat and just do something fun tomorrow?”

“Are we allowed to do that?” she wonders. He says he’ll ask permission from Iain.

The whole time they’re talking, I can’t keep my eyes off the Acropolis in the background, all lit up at night. It’s gorgeous!

The next morning, Nathan asks Captain Sandy if he could get permission to take Gael off the boat “to do a wee activity” in the afternoon. “I’ve been enjoying her company, so I just thought it would be nice if we could get off the boat and have a little distraction.”

Sandy’s a sucker for love, cause she says sure without hesitation. “Of course,” she smiles. “Enjoy yourself. As long as the work is completed.”

They go to a rock-climbing facility later that afternoon. Nathan is suddenly afraid of heights, but Gael is a natural. She scrambles up the wall and rappels down without any problem.

They have a wonderful time and return to the boat happy.

Taking on water

At the preference meeting for the next charter, Sandy tells Aesha, Jono, and Iain that the weather is going to be bad tomorrow. They’re not going to be able to get off the dock for at least the first day. The wind’s going to blow at 40+ knots.

“In the States, this would be called a hurricane,” Sandy interviews. “Since we’re in the Med, it’s called a ‘Medicane.’ High winds, lots of rain.” She’s hoping the weather will move through quickly, and they can get off the dock the second day.

The rain begins with a vengeance just as the provisions arrive. When Sandy’s down in the crew mess, she hears water dripping. Turns out it’s in the forward cabin (I thought she was going to get that fixed?).

Somehow Sandy determines that the water is coming from the bosun’s locker, which is just above the forward cabin. When she goes to check it out, she discovers, “We’re taking on water.”

If the boat takes on too much water, it could sink. “We can’t go to sea if we’re taking on water,” she says.

Apparently, the bosun’s locker is full of water. Sandy radios the chief engineer and tells him the windows and doors are all closed, as is the hatch. She doesn’t know where the water is coming from. He says he’ll be right there.

He discovers that a plug has popped off a water line and is spewing water. The good part is that they finally figured out why the forward cabin was leaking. Sandy pulls out the wet mattress and says to get some fans into the cabin to dry it out.

Water, water everywhere on Below Deck Mediterranean

Since they won’t be able to leave the dock, Jono is planning some really fancy food to distract the guests. As they’re enjoying their snacks and drinks at the bar, Sandy breaks the bad news that they won’t be leaving the dock today.

“You would hate me and be scared for your life,” she tells them.

To make up for not being able to take the boat off the dock, Aesha has plans to take them to one of Athens’ oldest wineries for winetasting. It’s 17 kilometers away. Will they make it in the pouring rain?

As the guests leave with Aesha to go winetasting, Sandy checks on the weather again. “30 inches of rain today?” she says. What?! Is that even possible? I live in California. We don’t get that much in a year.

As the guests are rethinking their winery outing and the deck crew is frantically trying to get the deck cushions out of the rain, suddenly an alarm goes off.

“I think we’re leaking again,” Sandy says in dismay. “Oh, this is bad.”

She sends Iain to check if the forward cabin is still leaking. He climbs up into the infrastructure. We can’t see him, but we can hear him swearing, “Oh, f*ck!”

Whatever it is, it can’t be good. But we won’t know until next week, because they leave us hanging. Damn you, show!