DC ExtraTime: Someone You Should Know - Below Deck's Captain Lee

BY DC CUEVA                        

■ @DC408DXTR  @ IG/YT/SC/TB

As we've been able to expand covering MTV Reality over the years, so has the amount of subject material for us at DCBLOG to feature in these ExtraTime stories. You would think that we should stick to just covering the episodes like other sites and podcasts do, but we do this as a way to broaden the fanbase of the shows you enjoy watching to those outside the MTV fandom... and in turn, we get to introduce them to everyone through this prism. This post: no exception.

Below Deck cast at Season 7 reunion (Bravo)

Last year at this time, we got used to seeing the sights of boats out in the sea, in the harbor and by the beach thanks to Lindsay Lohan's Beach Club. Last week, we saw Marlon and La Demi embark on the season's last getaway date on Ex On The Beach when they got to go out to sea in the late winter's breeze of Queenstown Bay in New Zealand... and of course, boat trips are common in Siesta Key including on the ship owned by king Alex. And then, there's people who do this for a living and a job... and it takes place across the TV dial.

The Bravo series Below Deck debuted six months after Vanderpump Rules began airing, but it is a different and independent series from The Real Housewives franchise. Like its West Hollywood counterpart at Lisa's SUR restaurant and its affiliated TomTom bar, Below Deck documents the lives of the crew members that both work and reside on board a mega yacht during the summer charter boat season. Like other reality docuseries, the crew deals with personal hardship to ensure their careers run as smoothly as possible, and where guests have been featured during its eight seasons... same goes for its spinoff, Below Deck Mediterranean over in Europe.

A person who has been through it all on Below Deck is Captain Harold Lee Rosbach, who has immersed himself in the yachting industry for more than two decades. This native of the major city of mid-Michigan in Saginaw first discovered his love of the water while being a restaurant worker, and someone who worked with him let Rosbach know of an opening as a mate in delivery of sailboats. He did for the opportunity to earn some more allowance money on top of his job at the eatery, but he didn't know it would become a life's passion of his. And in his mid-30's, Lee received a license to become a Captain and turned his attention from overseeing waiters and food to chartering the seas, eventually seeing boats that measure as much as 160 feet in length over his time in the water.

Earlier this month, Season 8 of Below Deck wrapped up with something the Captain has never had in the first seven: not worrying about firing someone for bad behavior. But nonetheless, the season ended with barely a breeze: a longtime stalwart of the series as the longest-reigning crew member other than the captain, charter chef and six-season veteran Kate Chastain, announced on Twitter that she would leave the series to pursue a new role back in her native Florida. And in a rare moment of him losing his cool, the captain himself walked out of the reunion special last week when his fellow crew got into it verbally on set, no doubt frustrating him and Bravo king Andy Cohen.

Captain Lee most recently got to meet up with someone who himself was on a boat trip six years ago: Jay G from The Real World Ex-Plosion, The Challenge Exes 2, and who memorably made a phone cameo on Max Joseph's last episode of Catfish. The boat trip Jay went on was in upstate California on a summer's weekend during his RW season when he and his cast were sent up there while work on their Bay Area house was done to bring the seven strangers' exes to the house, including Jay's ex Jenna Compono, who has become much more well known than him thanks to her relationship and now engagement to Zach Nichols, not to mention her many Challenge seasons.

The Captain and the now-former Below Deck castmate Kate had a club night at Pool After Dark, the major happening at Harrah's Atlantic City before the reunion aired. And Jay happened to be in the same building as the two notable Bravo figures in a town that has suffered in recent years with many resorts closing in what was once America's most-visited casino town before Vegas doubled down and retook the lead. Jay captioned the picture below on Instagram, "I am the captain now.. Selfie with the captain himself @captain_lee_rosbach thank you for the courtesy @poolafterdark #belowdeck #ac #poolafterdark"

#belowdeck watching the reuinion with captain Lee #belowdeckthailand pic.twitter.com/kUIoyE6VtF

— Jay G (@JayGMTV) February 11, 2020

Below Deck is produced by production company, 51 Minds, who recently produced Paramount Network's Battle of the Fittest Couples with Bachelorette couple Jojo Fletcher and Jordan Rodgers (who beat four alumni who've gone onto MTV in the past two years), and who are also the minds behind MTV's next new reality series, Busch Family Brewed, which will chronicle ascendants of the famed Busch family which founded Budweiser and its longtime parent company Anheuser-Busch. We'll be profiling this new iteration of The Osbournes meet the Clydesdales on here next week.

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