‘Below Deck’: Captain Lee Reveals He Was ‘So Close’ To Firing Rocky Dakota From Season 3
Captain Lee Rosbach from Below Deck said Raquel “Rocky” Dakota was extremely close to being one of the many cast members who received one of his infamous plane tickets home.
Below Deck Season 3 experienced as many cast changes as Below Deck Mediterranean Season 5. First, deckhand/second engineer Don Abenante quit after being admonished for jumping in the water for an impromptu swim with Dakota.
But then chef Leon Walker and deckhand Dane Jackson were both fired. Jackson only lasted a few episodes and was fired for being a belligerent and threatening drunk. Walker’s dirty kitchen created a breeding ground for a fire, which ignited inside the oven when the stews made snacks for the guests late at night.
A fan wondered why Dakota wasn’t fired. “Oh, it was close, so close,” Rosbach tweeted. So why did Dakota get so close?
Captain Lee summed up the trouble Rocky Dakota brought to the season
Aside from struggling to do her job, Dakota warred with chief stew Kate Chastain. Plus she secretly hooked up with bosun Eddie Lucas and it started to impact her job when she caught feelings and he tried to distance himself from her.
Rosbach reflected on the season and Dakota’s performance in his Bravo blog. “Rocky, I had such hope for you,” he began. All you have to do to finish well is your job and just let things be. But that is not going to be the case from the looks of it.”
“First, you are going to make sure you tie Emile [Kotze] up into such an emotional knot that it may take months of therapy to unravel him,” Rosbach wrote, referring to the deckhand who crushed hard on Dakota but she didn’t reciprocate.
“Poor guy can’t concentrate on his job to the point he almost hurts himself. He’s not getting on well with any of his crewmates any longer. He’s lashing out at people that don’t really deserve it and all because he wants to be your knight in shining armor.”
Captain Lee acknowledged the trouble from the secret affair
“I get it – you’re tired, you have been wronged, you’re losing your mind, you can’t take it anymore,” he continued referring to being ghosted by Lucas.
“But then to go and tell Amy [Johnson], when you knew she had a minor crush on Eddie?” he questioned. “Now you’ve hurt two people’s feelings while trying to get the sympathy you feel you deserve.”
“Do you think that Amy really wanted to hear how great sex was with Eddie? Not appropriate with your coworker,” he wrote. “I’m just glad Leon isn’t here to pour more gas on this out of control fire by informing the crew about your affair with Eddie. I worry I may have erred in letting you stay on board after your jump overboard.”
Her jump was a probably a fireable offense
Dakota literally jumped ship when Walker was fired. She saw an ally in Walker and once he was gone, she decided she was going to leave too. Dakota stripped off her uniform and then dove into the ocean. She swam to a nearby boat but eventually returned to the crew.
“Rocky… In what world do you think that you have the right to just strip down, bail on your crew, swim to another boat that, by the way, has to bring you back?” Rosbach questioned Dakota in another blog.
“And you think you are the victim?” he added. “You were so fortunate just to keep your job and you don’t seem to realize that. You picked up exactly where Leon left off as the most disruptive force on the boat. While the rest of the crew is concerned with how we are going to make this charter a great one for our guests, you are concerned with how it affects you.”
“To say I am disappointed in you is an understatement,” he wrote. “Like Leon, you have so much talent, and I hate to see it wasted.”
