Cruise Ship Killer
Cruise Ship Killer (CSK) is a darkly comedic, deeply skeptical podcast that investigates deaths, disappearances, and bizarre incidents aboard cruise ships.
Cruise Ship Killer
EP11: The Sailing Hookers Mystery
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A luxury night on the water is supposed to be calm, predictable, and safe. Then someone goes overboard and the explanation starts changing.
We’re Jeff and Kathy, and we’re digging into the disappearance of Lynette Hooker, who vanishes after a late-evening dinghy ride near Elbow Cay in the Bahamas. Her husband, Brian Hooker, describes a sudden storm, broken equipment, and a long drift to shore but witnesses and reported surveillance point to calmer conditions and shallow water. We walk through the timeline step by step, focusing on what boating safety and man overboard protocol would normally look like, and why details like life jackets, ropes, a kill switch lanyard, flares, GPS data, and AIS vessel tracking matter so much in a maritime investigation.
We also talk about the search effort, the arrest and release, and the hard truth many missing person cases face at sea: without a body, evidence can be thin even when the story feels full of holes. A powerful clip from Lynette’s daughter adds an emotional layer that’s difficult to ignore and raises the question that sits under the whole case: what’s accident, what’s negligence, and what’s something darker?
Then we shift gears with something lighter: our Cruise Ship Killer dictionary, packed with cruise slang and crew jargon you’ll start noticing everywhere once you know it. Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves true crime, and leave a review with your theory on what happened out there.
Do want to learn more about Cruise Line Terminology, alert calls, and fun cruise terminology? Check out our CruiseShipKiller Dictionary!
Cold Open And Warning Signs
Speaker 1It's relaxation, luxury, and absolutely nothing going wrong. But every year people disappear, accidents happen. And the official explanation somehow never gets simpler. This is Cruiseship killer, a podcast where we examine real cruiseship deaths, disappearances, and mishaps. We're not here to accuse. We're here to ask, does any of this actually make sense? Welcome aboard. Welcome to episode 11 of Cruise Ship Killer. I'm Geoff. I'm Kathy. Hey Kathy. Hey Geoff. So um you know how like media can inspire people to do things?
Speaker 3Yes.
Speaker 1After our last show, I'm really worried because we did the whole fight segment, right? The whole show on the fights, and then what the next day, there was a massive brawl. Where was this in the disembarkation area?
Speaker 3Yeah, getting off the cruise to go home. Get your luggage.
Speaker 1How many people?
Speaker 3I think it was 14. Two different families um, you know, getting in a fist fight.
Speaker 1And they're they're banned for life, right? Yes. Is it on just one cruise ship?
Speaker 3Yes, I believe so.
unknownWow.
Speaker 1See, we don't want to be an inspiration here.
Speaker 3No.
Speaker 1We're trying to we we actually don't want a job at this, right? No. We don't we don't want to be talking about this all the time because it just like even today's today's show.
unknownRight.
Speaker 1I I you know you should walk away from this show and say, yeah, CSK, take some notes, buddy.
Speaker 3If tomorrow someone else falls off a dinghy, I'm gonna be concerned.
Speaker 1Seriously. Yeah, no, this is crazy. This is this is a good one. So you wanna do we want to just jump right in, or we have any housekeeping? What about our word?
Speaker 3Oh, the word of the day last podcast was arrest or arrested, which we said seven times, which equals seven shots.
Speaker 1That seems low to me that we said it seven times.
Speaker 3Given it was a fighting episode, yes, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 3But you know, cheers, everybody.
Speaker 1No one's reported like
Word Of The Day Overboard
Speaker 1they've just fallen down after a show, have they? Okay, there's been no injuries post-show. No. All right.
Speaker 3The word of the day is overboard.
Speaker 1All right, so this show is the or this episode is the uh This is the how are we titling this?
Speaker 3So we I the the the I title it as once in a dinghy? Oh my gosh. It's uh it's a show that deviates from our usual cruise ship incidents. It's you know, took place on a boat, a boat and a dinghy. Yeah, you can say boat. I can say boat now, yes. Uh it's about Lynette Hooker and her husband Brian Hooker, who were cruising around the Caribbean, and that's why they made the show, because they're cruising. Yes.
Speaker 1Cruising on their sailboat. Yeah. Forty, what is it? I I heard 45-foot
Meet Lynette And Brian Hooker
Speaker 1sailboat. 45 foot, is that right?
Speaker 3I think so. 44, 45. Yeah, yeah. It's not small. That's not small to me. That seems big to me.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 3But they um they were married for 25 years. They separated a few times during the marriage. There's talk of him being abusive and that he drinks too much, and then he gets angry. Um, Lynette told her mom that had gotten worse since they moved from a normal house to sea life for both of them. She added, she was drinking too much, too, she said. Uh, in 2020, they sold her house, all their possessions. She gave up her career to pursue sailing. They moved to Texas, did some sailing day trips around the country, and then bought a 40-year-old 44-foot charter boat in Texas from the U.S. Virgin Islands. It's a fixer-upper. Um, and interestingly enough, these guys had a YouTube channel and an Instagram documenting their journeys, and they call themselves the Sailing Hookers, which I thought was pretty funny. Um and so they have a decent amount of subscribers, 2,000. I'm a little jelly that they have 2,000.
Speaker 1Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3That's our next goal, right? 2,000.
Speaker 1Yeah. So that's okay, so you started right out of the gate with them having some problems. Or they had they have a history of problems. Yes. But what like let's break down like what happened because I think it just grows from there. This is like his story, right, or the events as they unfolded. This just is growing into the biggest tree I've ever seen, right? I mean, it went from this little seed to this It is like and it's still growing.
Speaker 3And his story forever changes each time he tells it, depending on who he's talking to. That's another issue.
Speaker 1He's like topping Pinocchio here.
Speaker 3Yes.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 3So I guess on April 4th, they went to dinner at Elbow Bay, they left. He says a storm suddenly popped up out of nowhere, and Lynette bounced off their eight-foot dinghy around 7 30 at night. Other people in that area say there was no storm, that the weather was calm, that the water was calm, and there's some surveillance evidence from cameras around there that also show no storm. And the area they're in where she bounced off is known to be pretty shallow water. You can wait in it, sometimes you can stand in it if the tide is out. So Was the tide out?
Speaker 1Do we know that?
Speaker 3I I'm guessing no at that time of night, but still she's a good swimmer, so you think shallow water, she should have been able to Right, and no real storm. That's what they're saying. Yeah. Yeah. Um he he tossed her a seat cushion, he said, but doesn't know if she got it because the sun set ten minutes after she fell, and even though it was still light out, he couldn't see her because there were three foot waves. And so in this little Yeah.
Speaker 1Little Bay Area, right? That's pretty small. I saw I looked at on the map. It doesn't look very large at all.
Speaker 3Right. And that never threw her a life jacket or a rope that was in the dinghy. So right out of the gate,
The Dinghy Account Gets Questioned
Speaker 3lots of questions about his story. And according to him, they bypassed every safety protocol they diligently followed that night. Like they weren't wearing their life jackets. Uh she was holding an engine kill switch around her neck, which whoever's driving the boat is supposed to have that. The daughter says her mom hardly ever drove the dinghy. Um, so the kill switch, it's a safety device that stops the motor if the driver falls overboard and prevents the boat from becoming, you know, a runaway vessel. So the dinghy stops, she keeps floating away. Um, and then he says an oar pin suddenly broke off, and he lost an oar in the water. So then he decides to drop the anchor on the dinghy while she continues to float away, and the boat's not going anywhere now, so not even trying to pursue her with the one paddled, you know, try to get to her at all.
Speaker 1What what did he say? What do he what did he say he's doing? Is he he's trying to go where then? Back to the boat?
Speaker 3Well, he What's he gonna do then?
Speaker 1Get the boat, try to chase her down with the boat?
Speaker 3You know, that's the thing he should have done because the boat was, I guess, a thousand yards away. Let's less than a five-minute ride in the dinghy to get to their boat. And um that would have been my choice. That his boat has an infrared signal called a Flir uh box on it. He could have tracked, you know, tracks the heat, body heat. Really? Could have used that to track her. It has a man overboard thing on it. Of course, she's overboard before they reach the boat.
Speaker 1But wait, he so you're saying that she goes in the water, he throws the seat cushion.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1He tries to now paddle to get her, breaks a pin on one of the oars.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 1Now he's down to one one oar. And and actually, the he said the he said the paddle went in the water, one of them went in the water. It not only broke, but one went in the water?
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Did they ever find that?
Speaker 3I don't think they found the paddle.
Speaker 1Okay. Wait a minute. But they did find the flotation device.
Speaker 3They found the sea cushion, but they found it in the bay that he ended up in, not anywhere out at sea where he threw it to her. Uh-huh.
Speaker 1So that's a little suspicious. If the seat cushion and the oar went into the water at the same time, wouldn't you think both of them would have floated the same direction?
Speaker 3Right. Right.
Speaker 1If the current was that bad? Do we know if he was being pulled towards towards the boat, his his his boat? Did he make it to a boat, to his boat? Or did he just go to shore trying to find her? What which direction did he go?
Speaker 3He says no. So the um he says he paddled with one oar. Uh it helped, and the current and the wind pushed him toward Marsh Bay, where he he landed nine hours later.
Speaker 1And the Okay, so he's he's in his eight-foot dinghy with his one oar.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1And you're saying say that again? He eight hours later.
Speaker 3Nine hours later. He finally made it. He he makes it, and even the security guard says, You're just getting here now, because technically that's a two and a half hour uh you know trip in a dinghy to get across that bay. But it took him nine hours.
Speaker 1Have you ever have you ever been like in a small boat when it's been really, really windy on the ocean or on the lake or anything like that? And and and and you've made the mistake. I see only only I would do this. You made the mistake because you're fishing and you're like, hey, let's use the wind to carry us across the lake and we'll fish as we go, not realizing that at the end of the day you gotta or your butt back.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 1And it takes forever because you're going up against the wind.
Speaker 3We have we have not been on a small boat, but Dave and I have been on a paddle boat. I think it was in Tahiti.
Speaker 1And you got stuck.
Speaker 3And we got stuck, and we were just really peddling, pedaling, trying to get back. And the the guys on the land that were just looking at us laughing, like, stupid Americans, you know, what are you doing out there?
Speaker 1What are you doing?
Speaker 3Yeah, it it I didn't think we were gonna make it.
Speaker 1So I mean, so so nine hours seems like a little much.
Speaker 3For no weather, yes.
Speaker 1But you know, it's plausible. Also I have to say it's plausible.
Speaker 3Also, he states that the current and wind were pushing him toward Marsh Bay, not away. He is going with the current.
Speaker 1Well, see, that's a big, big difference. Yeah. That's a big difference. And he just could have sat back and just floated right into her.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 1So And how did he lose sight of her?
Speaker 3Yeah. Uh it's just this story's full of holes.
Speaker 1I mean, somebody goes over, the first thing you do is you're immediately turning no matter what. You're doing whatever you can, right?
Speaker 3Oh yeah.
Speaker 1So he It would have to be some seriously rough water with a really serious current.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 1To drag someone like a, you know, like a an undercurrent, you know, just to pull you out. You just can't. That's crazy.
Speaker 3So he tells he's got a couple friends, and he's he's telling different stories of where she went. One was she swam toward Hope Town with a yellow dry bag that has her phone in it, yet there's no GPS transmission from her phone. They never found the bag floating.
Speaker 1Do we know when her phone was off? When did when did when because they must they must know that? They they probably haven't said anything.
Speaker 3Yeah, we don't know. But then he said she swam toward the shore. Then he said she swam toward the sailboat. So boy. He's got some boater friends, a Daniel Danforth, a Blaine Stevenson, who are also skilled boaters that they were friends with, and they're both saying, No, your story's not adding up. Um his friend, so he says, We were trying to get back into the boat, and I was baling water out of the cockpit. So his friend says, So you're in the water too? And he goes, uh no. And then he changes the subject and starts talking about something else. And his friend is like, Boaters never call a dinghy a boat, unless it's you, Geoff. And there is no cockpit on a dinghy. So
Search Efforts, Arrest, And Contradictions
Speaker 3then he says he fired flares. In the area he fired flares, there's no witness that saw a flare, but later on at 9 p.m., witnesses see a flare in a totally different area, not where he said he fired a flare. Um, and then the GPS info from his electronic devices do not match what he told authorities. So now it's two months later, and they're searching a whole different area now.
Speaker 1And I it's so this is crazy. So my understanding is like like this occurred in early April within a span of like five or six days. He's detained, and he's detained for like five days. So he's obviously getting questioned, and so this is early on in the investigation. They let him go. Yeah. But now a whole bunch of stuff is learned. He's is he still running around?
Speaker 3He is. So they I think it was on April 7th, the search now turned into a recovery mission because they they don't think she's alive.
Speaker 1Um doesn't that I why do you think they come to that conclusion so quickly? I mean, I look I'm looked at the area, so I guess they're thinking if she did make it, we would have found her by this time and and s she would have shown up.
Speaker 3Right, because they're initially going by what he told them. Exactly. And they haven't found anything.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 3So, you know, they're using drones, divers, cadaver dogs, underwater vehicles in the original search area, didn't you?
Speaker 1Yeah, and my understanding is it wasn't just the authorities that were looking. There were uh like citizens out on their boats. There was a helicopter involved. I mean, there was this there was a massive search.
Speaker 3Yeah, looking for her. And then on the 8th, he gets arrested, and then the mom, her mom and her daughter say they were told while he was in jail he only answered four of ninety-four questions that they asked him when he was in jail.
Speaker 1Uh meaning he refused to answer?
Speaker 3They didn't elaborate.
Speaker 1No, no one said.
Speaker 3Yeah, just said only four of ninety-four. So on the thirteenth, they release him and they don't charge him because they have no evidence, no confession. And then the day after he gets released, he says, I'm not leaving here till I find my wife. If I have to beg people or hire people to help me search for her, and then two days later he leaves and he shows up back in the United States saying, Oh, my mom doesn't feel well. So nobody, I think nobody has seen him since he's been back here. He's kind of laying low, I think.
Speaker 1That's gonna be kind of hard. I guess this is where Uber and Uber Eats comes in handy, right?
unknownYes.
Speaker 1Right. If you're under if you're ever in that situation, you're like, Well, I'm good. This is just I'm going back into COVID mode.
Speaker 3Yeah. So he comes back, and then the daughter and her boyfriend fly down to look for the mom. Um, and then all these things come up. His ex-wife says that when she was married to him, he threatened her that she's gonna have an accident.
Speaker 1Yeah, this is a 1999 divorce, right?
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1So there's a lot of court documents to back this up.
Speaker 3Yes. And then she texted one of her friends, Lynette, in 2024, saying that after six weeks at sea, they've decided to call it quits, and she's not going back. And I guess the too much closeness living on the boat, you know, the marriage can't survive it, and it was so bad that she could not be out there with him anymore, and that and then a month later, she's texting the friend that they've reconciled.
Speaker 1So and then they go on this trip and they start sailing again, end up at the Bahamas, sailing around the Bahamas, and this is when, and then all of a sudden this happens.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Well, that just smells bad, doesn't it? And I think that whole timeline smells bad to me.
Speaker 3Yes. I think I think when she separated for him for a month, she she stayed with her mom a few times in Florida. The mom has some photos that she's given to the police of bruises like on her back and her neck from the last time she stayed with her. Um and then oh, then the Lynette's daughter tells the cops that her mom told her in 2024 that Brian threatened to throw her overboard. So um now she's you know overboard all of a sudden.
Speaker 1No one makes that kind of stuff up.
Speaker 3No.
Speaker 1Right? Why would you make that up?
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 1There's uh there's like a lot of people that have reported like this kind of their kind of relationship was like this. Mm-hmm. It's not just it's not just one person, it's not like the daughter's coming out and say that.
Speaker 3Right. Friends that they traveled with, the mom. And then I think it it does stink.
Speaker 1It doesn't, but there's still no there's still nobody. Nope. There's still but they've seized the dinghy. They they just got the boat, right?
Speaker 3They got the boat or the ship.
Speaker 1Okay, what are we calling it?
Speaker 3The boat.
Speaker 1It's a boat. That's a boat, the dinghy's the dinghy, and there's yeah.
Speaker 3They got the boat on May 9th, and I did you watch the video? It was so funny. Did you see the video of them seizing
Threat History And Boat Evidence
Speaker 3it?
Speaker 1No, I wanted to watch it and I didn't get to it.
Speaker 3There's the Coast Guard is is uh chasing them off the coast of Melbourne, Florida, because he hired a crew to move it back to uh Fernandina Beach near Jacksonville. So they're videoing them and they're chasing them, and you know, there's two guys on board, and they're like, How many on board? Is there anybody under, you know, no? And they get on and go, got any guns? No. And and so the crew doesn't know what's going on, and then the Coast Guard says, Um, we're seizing this boat. And then the crew guy goes, Oh shit, you know, and they're looking at each other like, and then they're asking him questions, like, is the guy, is the owner gonna meet you? You know, and he goes, No, I don't think so. And I was like, Well, now, now no, he won't be meeting.
Speaker 1No, he won't, because he's he's yeah, unless you can do this by Uber Eats or any he's not going anywhere.
Speaker 3So now, like June 8th, the Coast Guard has concluded their search, but I still think they're trying to find some kind of evidence from the dinghy or the boat. Um that maybe I I think they did make it back to the boat. That would have been the most common sense thing to do. You're five minutes from there, swim to your boat, get on, put your infrared thing on, sail around, see, you know, where your wife is, not go on some nine-hour jaunt across a bay. It just doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1I read that the the tracking device the boats have, it's called AIS, I don't know if it's automated something or other, right? So it sends a radio signal so you know the boat can be tracked. And um but I heard, I don't know if this is true, confirmed, that that was turned off during the time period that all of this allegedly happened, right? His timeline.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1That was actually disabled. And from what I read, that system is usually on its own circuit. So in order for that to be turned off, you have to you have to actually go up and do it. You know, somebody has to go up and then throw that switch. It just wouldn't do it on its own.
Speaker 3Right. I think he turned it off.
Speaker 1Because it because the boat can be operational, have power for everything else, but you can just just that one item can be yeah, I think so too. If that's true, if that is confirmed, I don't know if that's really confirmed because they haven't really there's been who's the lead in investigative entity on this? Because I know the Bohemian police and and then certainly the Coast Guard, right? I I'm assuming that the FBI is kind of taking control because that evidence, the boat and the dinghy are headed to the United States. So I'm assuming that's going to the FBI.
Speaker 3I didn't read about it going to the FBI yet. I assumed it was the U.S. Coast Guard still.
Speaker 1Well, is the Coast Guard equipped to do that kind of forensic analysis? I don't think it's a very good thing.
Speaker 3Oh, you mean you mean evidence from the the dinghy and the boat?
Speaker 1Yeah, well now the boat has been compromised because it got two guys that were on it. Uh how far away were they after they got how they started to take this this boat back when the co Coast Guard grabbed them?
Speaker 3They were off the coast of Florida already.
Speaker 1Oh my lord. So they had been already traveling for at least a few days, right?
Speaker 3Mm-hmm. Yeah, but uh the evidence, stuff they're collecting, yes, it's at Quantico.
Speaker 1It is.
Speaker 3Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's a quantico.
Speaker 1So this is gonna be really interesting, huh? Yeah. How gosh, that's this is tough.
Speaker 3Yeah. So I think, you know, it's like a court of public opinion where everybody thinks, oh, he's guilty, and they, you know, the law, they can't, they have no evidence, they can't, they can't charge him with anything yet.
Speaker 1Now I heard that also that the the area where he is where where they started looking, the new area, because his his his his device was saying he was in this particular area, that they have underwater frenzy. Teams. Like they're they're going down. They're they're looking.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1They're looking not just on the coastline. They're looking in the in the water.
Speaker 3Yeah, but you know, two months later, good luck finding a body now.
Speaker 1I mean I didn't know you were a forensic marine expert. Is that what they call what do you call them?
Speaker 3Well, I just read, when you're drowning, you you sink, and then sometimes there's gases in your body, then you're floating, then you sink again, and then you know, you become fish food. It's not a it's just two months later. I I don't think they're gonna find her now.
unknownGosh.
Speaker 3It's it's been such a long time. I watch uh criminal minds. I I know a lot of this stuff. Watch criminal minds.
Speaker 1But he's out walking around.
Speaker 3Yes, it's it's maddening. Because I I think everybody thinks, oh, you did this and now you're gonna get away with it, probably.
Speaker 1And in order for them to really nail it down, they they they gotta link it to a body.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 1And then they gotta not only to your point, if it's in the water, right? I mean it's gonna be really difficult.
Speaker 3I wonder what the odds are if he does get away with this, he's ever gonna have like a third wife that goes sailing with him after this.
Speaker 1Well, you could you let's say they find the body and they know, oh yeah, that it but there's all this circumstantial evidence, right? I mean, just like okay, what's the odds that this thing on your boat is gonna get turned off between this hour and this hour, and it's just so happens to be when you're paddling upstream that you're reporting, right?
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1That took nine hours.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1I mean, just everything about it, it's it's just got holes everywhere. And it seems that the more the story goes, the more involved, more experts get.
SpeakerYes.
Speaker 1That's my impression. Like there's more players that get involved in figuring this out. That doesn't, that doesn't that's not so good. CSK, are you listening? That's not so good. It's a sign that you they're on to you.
Speaker 3You know, you say CSK. I actually looked up, have these guys ever been on a cruise ship? I'm like, this guy would be an excellent candidate as a CSK.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3But I can't find that they've ever been on a cruise ship cruise, though. So but he would have made an excellent candidate. Yeah, right. Especially if he gets away with it.
Speaker 1So what what what do you think is gonna happen next? How long do you I mean this is moving pretty quickly? Wouldn't you say?
Speaker 3It is, but unless they find something.
Speaker 1April, May, June, here we are in July.
Speaker 3They got the dinghy on the longer it goes, the less really I think
The Daughter’s Call Sounds Wrong
Speaker 3evidence they can find. Some especially something that's gonna stick.
Speaker 1Gosh. It's just crazy.
Speaker 3But I do have an audio um file for Dave to play of Lynette's daughter being interviewed by Dr. Phil on how she found out her mother was missing and what he said to her. And after that, I was just kind of like, this just sealed it for me.
Speaker 1Like And I also heard he post it on social media.
Speaker 3Oh, did he?
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 3Oh Lord.
Speaker 1Like that takes effort.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1I don't know. I mean, I mean I know there's a lot of guys that are involved in social media and they post like crazy, but I'm not one of them. And I don't even have any friends that do that religiously. So to me, it's like this is like a big red flag.
Speaker 3Yeah. Alright, you want to play it?
Speaker 1Alright, I'll play it.
SpeakerUpset about it? Did he tell you, Karli? Did he say, hey, listen, you need to sit down. I've got some bad news. Your mother's missing, or was it like, hey, how's it going? Oh, by the way. Tell me about this conversation.
Speaker 2Uh he was very monotone. Uh, so he's like, hey, I gotta tell you something. Your mom fell in and the current took her away, so I threw a flotation device to her. I don't know if she got it, and the wind pushed me the other way, so I started peddling the Marsh Harbor. But we're gonna come up and see you soon, so I hope to see you. I was like, what? And then he went back to conversation and quickly hung up, and then that's when Steve got up and he because I had him on speaker phone, and Steve stood up, he was like, Something's wrong with that story, like something's off. Like and your mom and that threat from two years ago, and now this is happening. There's something going on.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's crazy.
Speaker 3So Steve's her boyfriend, right? And uh he's referring to when uh Lynette told her daughter he's threatening to throw me overboard, and that's what he's talking about, and now and now this has happened.
Speaker 1So my gosh. Well, there's one common threat, is always people that are impacted by this kind of stuff, and that's the daughter certainly is, right? The whole family is the mom. I mean, they must feel terrible knowing that these kinds of things are said, right? But it's that same scenario here, way too much, right? People are like, oh yeah, no, it was said he was gonna throw her overboard last year. Well, why didn't he weren't there other didn't anybody say anything? Yeah. There, you know, there's photographs, you know, it's like, okay, what at what point does somebody step up and say, no, you can't do that anymore? She must have been pretty, pretty adamant about sticking with them.
Speaker 3Yeah, she went back a couple times.
Speaker 1Because most families are gonna say, you can't do this, you can't do this, you know, no, no, no, you know, I got it. Next thing you know, there we are. Wow, terrible.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1All right. So so we we that one will keep keep up the speed with.
Speaker 3I bet you there's gonna be a dateline on that one pretty soon, don't you think?
Speaker 1Well, I just wonder, you know, what evidence they're gonna be able to collect from the from the boat and the dinghy at this point.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Because her DNA's gonna be everywhere anywhere, anyway, right? So they're gonna be looking for damage, I would think. Stuff he can't clean up, like a dent.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 1Right? And focus in on you know, like blunt force stuff, I would I would think.
Speaker 3Yes.
Speaker 1But it sounds like he also did a lot of choking. He actually he like choked one of his daughters, apparently. It's it's some history of you know, his kind of domestic violence. So if he did strangulation, there's not gonna
Cruise Ship Dictionary And Slang
Speaker 1be anything on the boat, you know? Yeah, but it's crazy. Alright, well, some fun.
Speaker 3Some fun stuff about your cruise ship. So the cruise ship dictionary that's very funny. Yeah.
Speaker 1No, this is so this is fun. So we have a dictionary that Cruise Ship Killer Podcast is making available to everybody. I think you just go on our Cruise Ship Killer, right, where the podcast is being played. There's a link to it, right? Yeah, I'm getting a nod. Yep, there's a link to it. And you can open it up on your phone. And the beauty is that you can you know hook it up so you have it on your on your home screen. And it as long as you connect to the dictionary while you're on on the internet once, it'll load that on to your phone so you can be offline. So if you end up losing signal on the ship, you can still mess around with the dictionary. But the dictionary's got, I don't know how many terms. I want to say there's probably 180 or something. There's a lot. There's there's a lot, but they're categorized, which is kind of fun. So we have one category, behavior, and archetypes that I really like. And some of these are they're social media things that are picked up in social, like what people type about. Like, I I really like the balcony smoker. Only because I've not busted a balcony smoker. Have you ever busted a balcony smoker? I mean, it's obvious what a balcony smoker is, right? So someone's on the balcony smoking, yeah. But there's actually a term for it, a balcony smoker. So there must be this whole chatter online when somebody spots a balcony smoker. You can imagine, right? It's like it's like playing telephone. Balcony smoker, balcony smoker.
Speaker 3I have witnessed uh someone in line at customer service uh getting in trouble for balcony smoking, and they were denying it. No, we were not, we were not. We have somebody, they were gonna they were getting fined, and he was just adamant. We have not been smoking.
Speaker 1See, remember, I I said remember we covered this. Yeah. Like in one of the episodes. Like if the crew even suspects they don't have to have any evidence. They can just say, nope, bust it.
Speaker 3Yeah, 500 bucks.
Speaker 1Yeah, 500 bucks. Yeah, that's right. Pay up 500 bucks. Yeah. How about uh buffet queen or BQ? I guess BQ on social.
Speaker 3Buffet queen?
Speaker 1Buffet queen. Yeah, buffet queen is a passenger who treats the ship's buffet as a full-time occupation.
Speaker 3It's holding up the whole line while they're trying to decide.
Speaker 1You know, and I might actually fall into this category because it's, you know, the characteristics are hovering, returning repeatedly. You know, I I'm indecisive, so I'll end up going back. Approaching the plate logistics with genuine strategy, I definitely do that. I'll like, oh, let's take a little plate, and that's why I'm hovering on the return. I'm like, oh man, I'll just get a bigger plate. You know, next thing you know. So and also no one thinks you're eating a lot, right? If you go to the little plates, you're back and forth, back and forth. Oh, he's just getting a piece of fruit. Oh, he's just one piece of pie. Right? But then if they saw me at the table, there's a stack of little plates, it's probably about as high as my glass.
Speaker 3I have to like walk around the whole thing first because I don't know what they have, and I don't want to waste food, so I walk the whole thing to see what I want, and then I go back and get what I want. So you're not a I'm not a hoverer. I don't know what you call that. A planner.
Speaker 1Yeah, no, you're you're you're not well you mean I guess you're kind of a buffet queen if you're kind of hovering around.
Speaker 3I'm not hovering, but you're strategizing quickly. Yeah, you're strategizing. You're strategizing. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1I guess if you fall out of the buffet queen category, you just confidently walk up, grab a plate, know that you want that piece of steak, mashed potatoes, and gravy, and you're gone.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1So if you're in and out, that's it. You're not a buffet queen. But if you're shuffling about, yeah. So there's on a related one, there's you can be uh uh what is it called? They're they're a bacon police. Yeah, it's when there's the buffet staff hovering around the bacon to make sure people only take like two slices or three slices when there's like a yeah, to get control over the bacon. So they're turned to bacon police.
Speaker 3They must go through a lot of bacon to have a bacon police then.
Speaker 1Next time I gotta pay attention to that. Yeah. Because there must be this crew, this staff member, right? Yeah, this crew hanging around the bacon. I've never really noticed that because what am I doing? I'm I'm hovering. I'm strataging. Not even paying attention to the danger.
Speaker 3Next to the bacon
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah, the crew's technically danger for the buffet queen. Now you have you've spotted some in there's crew jargon, which I thought was cool.
Speaker 3Oh, I love the crew jargon because I thought I could even study your list for the crew jargon to probably get a job. Because in an interview I'd be like, Yeah, I know what that is. You know, normally you'd be like, no, what is that? But after they read your dictionary, yeah. Probably get a job on the crew.
Speaker 1Like, there's there's some stuff you could really pile up with the crew if you know some of this lingo.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1You know, like when we were on that cruise, we had that bartender who was really good with the shaker. I mean, she just danced.
Speaker 3Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, and of course, you know, she did this funny dance. Not it wasn't funny, it was just entertaining. She really put you know her whole heart into the shaker.
Speaker 3She did.
Speaker 1Right? She did. And of course, we're ordering, ordering, we keep ordering drinks that required the shaker because she was entertaining. She was like entertainment.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1And but you know she was tired. Oh God, yeah.
Speaker 3I come home, I'm just trying to shake one drink, and I'm like, Right. She had to be repeatedly doing this all night. My arm hurts.
Speaker 1Yeah, because people were seeing her dance at our table, and the next thing you know, that she's dancing over there, right? So she so you know if we just hung out long enough knowing that her when her shift came, we could just say, Hey, you going to church after this?
Speaker 3Oh yeah.
Speaker 1Which is, you know, a euphemism. Go into the crew bar. Going to the crew bar. Yeah. There's a crew bar.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1You gotta wonder. I don't no, I don't there's not a uh term for the crew bar other than crew bar. But I wanted to say, hey, uh you're going to church, and hey, where is it?
unknownYeah.
Speaker 1If they would tell you, yeah. You gotta wonder what it's like. Yeah. You know, is it like the lower deck in Titanic? Remember where there's like they were gambling, it was really rough.
Speaker 3It's yeah, smelly. I remember that.
Speaker 1Yeah. So anyway, so the what other crew one did you like?
Speaker 3Um, I like the cones because I bet there's a lot of cones on Princess, but it's slang for passengers moving slowly and stopping without warning in high traffic corridors.
Speaker 1Yeah, so if you hear if you hear crew saying these cones, yeah, which I think is.
Speaker 3They must be like trying to bite their tongue from saying, hurry up, get out of the way.
Speaker 1Oh my gosh, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3Um oh I like your one about uh although I like one in particular, but it they almost mean the same, but the the code brown, the code baby Ruth, but which you know means a fecal incident in the pool. But I love the Disney version of it, code Winnie. Like clean up on deck seven in the kiddie pool, bring some swim diapers, you know. Code Winnie. Code Winnie. That's super cute.
Speaker 1That's not a hard one to figure out though.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 1Right?
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Somebody hears that. But yeah, so so the dictionary is available, so anybody can go in here and you know, browse around while you're on the boat and you'll or ship on the ship. If if you're even on a boat, you still this still counts because there's there's there's ship anatomy.
Speaker 3Oh, you're you have one uh Mumugayo, which everybody knows at workplaces on land, but crew members who are hiding and trying to avoid work while they're on duty.
unknownYeah.
Speaker 3It's a tagalog word. Mumu gayo
Speaker 1I like that one too.
Speaker 3And the kaboomba. Slang for food cooked past the point of doneness, which is why I can never be a chef on a cruise ship. But that everything I cook would be a kaboomba.
Speaker 1Kaboomba. And I would tell you, next cruise, when you ask me to fix it. Which I love next cruise because it's like they're not something you're not gonna do. Right. Right? Yeah. So you can use that that one you can throw around as a passenger to a crew, right? Like, hey, yeah, could you make this drink? But oh, I just want to look if I'm a high maintenance person, right? And go, I know what you're gonna tell me, next cruise, right? And see if they laugh. If they laugh and you're like, oh, this lingo's working. Yes. They definitely use it. And I also like SLF.
unknownSLF.
Speaker 1Which apparently is used in aviation. I gotta ask my brother since he's in in aviation. He probably knows self-loading freight. That's also a crew passenger code term for passengers. We're self-loading freight. Yeah, think about it. We're self-loading freight. It's true, right? And consider this. We're really actually light, lighter self-loading freight when we leave. Yeah. And when we're leaving the ship and disembarking, we're heavier.
Speaker 3Yes, we are.
Speaker 1Self-departing freight.
Speaker 3Yes, we are.
Speaker 1And we have to unload ourselves. So they don't really care.
Speaker 3No.
Speaker 1How much you drink? You're gonna get heavier out, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1And there is actually a term for gaining weight.
Speaker 3Oh, what's that one?
Speaker 1Uh I think it's like the the like the 10. Uh oh, I gotta look here. Let me see if I can find. Yeah, 10. It just it's 10 pounds. Apparently that's that's passenger shorthand for weight gain expected. I bet you on social media people will say that.
Speaker 3I I bet you everybody's gotta gain weight on a cruise. It the number has to be very low of people who can go on a cruise and come off weighing the same that they went on.
Speaker 1I agree with that. I agree with that. Yeah, because most people come off with the post-cruise depression or PCD also in the dictionary.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Or post-cruise blues if you're you know familiar with that psychological problem. Yeah, so anyway, the dictionary's fun. I like it.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1I like it.
Speaker 3It's good.
Speaker 1Yeah. So may people if you s if you've got some terms that we don't have in here that we should have, you can chime in in comments, right? You can definitely let us know. We can add to it. And you can actually link to the podcast directly from the dictionary. So when you're on the boat, ship, I'm gonna say boat ship. Boatslash ship. Actually, that's in the dictionary, this kind of slip-up that I've got going, because veterans are quick to call out people like me.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah. Anyway. So yeah, you can listen directly from the dictionary if you you've got a Wi-Fi for that. But get the package. The drink package.
Speaker 3Yes.
Speaker 1Yeah. So that way you can listen to the podcast. And at the same time, keep your eyes open. CSK is lingering.
Speaker 3I think so.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 3So next podcast. You want to talk about the Costa Concordia?
Speaker 1Because there's a new documentary out.
Speaker 3Okay.
Speaker 1Which I haven't seen yet. I think it's coming out
Costa Concordia Next And Closing
Speaker 1July? Mid-July? 17th? Yes, it's coming up soon.
Speaker 3Okay. I do remember that whole thing. Just the premise of it, you know. I think the ship captain's girlfriend's on board and he's trying to impress her, and he's like, well, I'm just gonna take a swing by my old house, the town I grew up in, and then he just like wrecks the whole ship and turns it over on the rocks.
Speaker 1I've had forgotten about that until he started promoting this documentary, and obviously the the thing that catches your attention right away, and they're rightfully used this image, which is this far away shot of this ship on its side.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1And I'm just thinking to myself, I what I can't remember, and I'm dying to learn more about, how long did it take to tip over like that?
Speaker 3That's a good question.
Speaker 1Because wouldn't can't you imagine being in Sanctuary, going, I don't know, something's not right. You know, and next thing, right? If it was really slow, it's like, I don't know. I mean, how I'd probably stay on my lounge chair until it started to at least scooch across the deck on its own. And I'd be like, Well, something's clearly not right.
Speaker 3What about the people who have the drink package who just think the room is spinning, right? Yeah, right, right.
Speaker 1Or or you're or you're at the slot machine and you're really banking it. What do you do, right? You don't want to leave the machine, you know, and all of a sudden you're just going sideways like this, but you're winning, you're winning, you're winning. Yeah, why would why would you get up? So I'm dying that there has to be stories like that. That that was a pretty big ship.
Speaker 3It was.
Speaker 1Do you have any idea how many people were on that?
Speaker 3I don't remember.
Speaker 1Gotta be at least, what, a thousand? At least, right? That's I'm being conservative, I think, with that guess, right?
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1Now, I don't know if there's any terminology for crew or pass in the dictionary on any of this. There should just be a holy you know what.
Speaker 3Yeah. We'll watch we'll watch the documentary and you can add one after the dictionary. Yeah, right.
unknownRight.
Speaker 1Anyway, so that'll be the next show we'll talk about that. Okay. Actually, that would be timely because I think hopefully we'll be able hopefully that'll be out. We gotta see that.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 1Yeah, we definitely gotta see it before we talk about it.
Speaker 3So if it's not, we have plenty of content, we said, for the next 20 years.
Speaker 1So yeah, and with our luck, apparently someone will probably go overboard and dingy again. Yes. Right after this show.
Speaker 3In the next week. Hopefully not.
Speaker 1Could be in a lake, but it doesn't matter. Yeah. Dingy. It's okay. All right, well, till next time, huh?
Speaker 3Anchors Away.
Speaker 1Anchors Away. That's it for this episode of Cruise Ship Killer. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, rate, and review, or don't. But statistically, the people who disappear never do either. So this case is hosted by Kathy Pearce and GeoffJ Smith, produced by Kristen Smith and David Pearce, researched by our Cruise Line Incident Researcher page log line. Additional editing and sound designed by Cal Deckland. Sources for today's episode are linked in the show notes because shockingly we did not make all of this up.
Speaker 3This is a Katie's Pub production.
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