Article by Capt. Franky Pettolina
I had just made a turn to head off a little deeper. A few boats had caught white marlin in fifty fathoms near the Rockpile first thing in the morning, but that bite seemed to have fizzled. The “Last Call” was still bite-less for the day and I knew it was time to make a change. My mental coin toss turned up heads, so I headed off to the east. The sun was shining. The seas were calm. Blue skies were overhead. Then a bat flew into my side window.
To quote Yogi Berra, “it was déjà vu all over again!” This was not the first time I had a bat fly into my flying bridge in the middle of the day, but it was no less unsettling than the last time it had happened. The last time it happened I was anchored up and chunking for tuna on the Hot Dog in the late 1990s. This time I was just north of the Washington Canyon or just south of the Poorman’s, depending on your point of view, trolling for white marlin.
The bat on the Hot Dog lump was jet black in color and swooped around the cockpit multiple times before landing up on my flying bridge, between my canvas soft top and my isinglass enclosure. The twenty first century new millennium version was more of a tan color. Kind of like a hamster with wings. It too had circled the boat once or twice before, landing on the aluminum rail next to my open isinglass curtain on the side of the flying bridge.
How does one handle such a situation you might ask? It is no secret that I am a fan of heavy metal music (Iron Maiden is playing in the background as I am typing this). So you might be thinking that I would settle the situation like the Prince of Darkness himself, the great Ozzy Osborne and have myself a little flying rodent sushi and bite that little blood sucker’s head off! Or maybe you would expect me to take a more civil approach and try to shoo the little guy away before he could bring his powers to bear and transform into a vampire and turn the ”Last Call” into a charter boat of the undead. But neither of these things were what happened. The scenario played out like this…
“Mr. Evans! Get up here and kill this thing!” I shrieked to my trusted friend and mate. My father began some ramblings about getting his Glock out of the master stateroom and showing us that his aim has not gotten worse with age (this plan was more foreboding than being bitten and turned into a minion of the evil Nosferatu himself). My mother, Maddie, was more inclined to be kind to the little critter. As a matter of fact, she threatened to unleash great anguish and suffering on any crew member that harmed one hair on the little beastie’s head.
Thankfully, for the well-being of the aeronautical rat and the entirety of the crew, the bat realized that it had landed in a mostly hostile territory and made an expeditious exit from my realm. I could now get back to the business at hand and try to find some marlin and decide how to sufficiently sanction Mr. Evans for his lack of action in coming to my aid in my hour of great peril.
A short while later, I received a text message from the wife of my “friend” Mr. Evans. If you are unfamiliar with some of the newest technology, Garmin Electronics has a satellite based communicator that will link to a smart phone and the user can send and receive text messages from just about anywhere. Cell towers be damned! The device I have is called an “Inreach.” Missy, Mr. Evans’ wife, usually sends me an “Inreach” around lunchtime every day to see what we have caught and how our day is going. I let her know that our morning had been on the slow side. Also, I relayed the information about our unusual bat encounter.
Missy’s response? “A bat? That’s not good. They are not daytime creatures.”
After a moment of shaking my head I texted her back, “They are not a middle of the ocean creature either, dumdum!”
So how did our day end up? My turn to the east did produce a couple of white marlin for us, and some bonus mahi. Which reminded me of another Yogi Berra saying…
“I never blame myself when I am not hitting. I just blame the bat and if it keeps up, I change bats. After all, if I know it isn’t my fault that I’m not hitting, how can I get mad at myself?”
Yup, I didn’t just change bats, I got rid of the bat altogether…
Capt Franky Pettolina is Co-Captain of the charter boat, “Last Call”, owner of Pettolina Marine Surveying, Inc. and multi-term President of the Ocean City Marlin Club. If you would like to book a charter on the “Last Call”, please call 443-783-3699 or 410-251-0575.
