Article by Capt. Franky Pettolina
My first summer as the full time mate on the “Last Call” was when I was 12 years old. It was the summer in between my 7th and 8th grade years at St. Matthew Regional School. I had made the big time. After two whole summers as the chamois boy I received my promotion. I was ready to show the whole town how great I was.
How quickly I learned some difficult truths and was brought back down to earth. I mean, I am sure that some of the older mates cried themselves to sleep after a tough day on the water right? And there had to be at least one other mate that had to ask a lady in the charter to open a snap swivel because his fingers were too weak to do it. Yeah there had to be one. But other than these few incidents (and probably a few others that I don’t recall thirty some years later) it truly was a great summer.
I may not have shown the town how great I was, but I did get to gaff plenty of tunas and mahi. I hauled in wheelbarrow loads of bluefish. I succeeded in hooking a white marlin for the first time. Twenty minutes after I accomplished that feat I pulled the same white marlin into the cockpit and rode it home to Shanty Town Marina (now known as The Ocean City Fishing Center) as was the norm in those days. I have the picture of that fish and a decent yellowfin we caught that day proudly hanging in my Man Cave that I told you about a few weeks ago. In hindsight, I probably wasn’t quite ready to handle the cockpit duties all by myself, but Dad had faith in his little boy and he also had the right captain for a novice 12-year-old to work with running his boat for him when he was not available that summer.
Capt. Jack Leonard was one of the older captains in the fleet at the time. To me he seemed ancient, but honestly he was probably in his late fifties. Not so old now that I am closer to fifty than I am to twenty! Like so many in our business Jack had lived a pretty wild life. He had been married eight times, although he only admitted to six. You see, he married wife number two and wife number six twice, so he didn’t count them again. Jack also partied a bit in his younger years. Enough that he had been completely sober for several years by the time he took the job as co-captain on the “Last Call”. As Jack told it, he decided to quit drinking when he fell overboard during one trip home from the Bahamas. Sure, we all fall overboard from time to time, but this particular time Jack was running the boat, sipping from a bottle of liquor while he was holding the only other passenger on the boat. To his credit, he fell overboard trying to rescue the other passenger when she fell overboard. Who was this passenger you ask? Some tanned island beauty maybe? Wife number three or four? Nope. A kitten. An actual kitten that Jack had taken a liking to and decided to take for a boat ride. Honestly, I don’t know if the rest of the story is true, but Jack told me that another boat plucked him, the kitten and the bottle out of the water and the boat he was running ran up on a reef. True or not, I could see why that would lead to a life of sobriety! Anyhow, Capt. Jack was my mentor that summer.
Capt. Jack had spent enough years on the water and had caught enough fish that he had the patience to deal with my lack of experience in those areas. He took the time to show me how to properly leader and gaff fish. He didn’t yell at me when I screwed up. He helped me rig up the night before trips and he coached me through the day when my inabilities were catching up with me. And he taught me one of the most valuable things I ever learned how to do on a charter boat. Get a free lunch!
Every morning Jack would help me load the charter party and their food and drink coolers onto the boat. Then he would call the anglers up to the fly bridge of the “Last Call” to explain the safety equipment to them, and to tell them what to expect during the day. While he was doing this he told me it was my responsibility to check the coolers and see what the folks had brought that day. Later during the ride out I would let Jack know what was on the menu and he would give me his order. When we arrived at the fishing grounds Jack would call the party out to the cockpit to explain how the rods and reels worked and I would go into the cabin and raid their coolers and get lunch for me and Jack and put it in the galley fridge. I was 12. I didn’t know any better. Plus Dad told me to do whatever Jack said! Aye Aye Captain!
This plan worked great for the first half of the summer. But like most great criminal masterminds, our lucky streak eventually ran out. One fine August day as we were trolling around the canyons waiting to snare an unsuspecting fish, an argument erupted in the cabin. It turns out that whoever packed the lunch that particular day had only prepared six sandwiches for six anglers. There was not an extra crumb to be found in the cooler. And now that it was lunch time there were four guys happily eating and two guys accusing their buddies of being no good bums for stealing their sandwiches! I don’t know why they never thought to blame me or Jack. I went about my mate duties and Jack kept steering around looking for a bite. But neither one of us dared to go after a bite of our ill gotten lunch that day!
My old friend Jack passed away a few years ago. I was told that while he was battling whatever illness it was that took him from us, Wife #5 lived with him and took care of him. I never did learn how old he actually was. But I learned many things from Jack that first summer and over the years that followed. Not a day goes by that I don’t use some trick Jack had showed me all those years ago. Most importantly I always remember to count how many people are in the charter and how many sandwiches are in the cooler.
Capt. Franky Pettolina is Co-Captain of the charter boat, “Last Call” and President of the Ocean City Marlin Club.
