An understandable fascination with the most dramatic and sensational moments of the fleet mutinies has tended to warp our understanding of these events. This chapter seeks to redress the balance. The Spithead and Nore mutinies each lasted for a month, and much of that time was characterised by an anxious normality. Part of the reason for this state of affairs was to reassure the sailors and hold the mutiny together, but much of it was necessary simply to fulfil the needs of daily life. Men had to be fed, ships had to be maintained, and idleness represented a well-known threat to discipline and good order. In this context, the continuation of routine labour was both a wise policy and a fundamental necessity. At the same time, daily life under these circumstances involved frequent negotiations, some small and others great. One of the most consequential forms taken by these negotiations is examined in detail using the case study of ships’ masters caught between the imperative of protecting the safety of the ship and their doubts about the legitimacy of the mutineer regime. The situation of masters is compared to that of local officials during food riots on shore.