Petey the Fly Sails to San Francisco
Published in 48° North, October 2001
Appears by permission of the author - "Petey the Fly"

Hi! My name is Petey and I am a fly from Port Townsend, Washington. I'd like to tell you about my most excellent adventure this Fall. I sailed to San Francisco!

I didn't really plan to sail offshore; it happened accidentally. It all started the weekend after the Wooden Boat Festival. After days of hanging around the food booths and enjoying outrageous dumpster diving, I was having garbage withdrawals when the show closed. I decided to check out the cruising boats -- bad idea!

I followed my nose to the S/V Vesper, whose owners, Jeff and Deirdre, had piles of fresh food in the cockpit, waiting to be stowed on that fateful Friday afternoon. I was in heaven! After a few hours examing the smorgasbord, I began exploring below. This was good, too! My undoing, however, was checking out the head. I got locked in. There was nothing to do but wait until morning, when I was sure someone would let me out. Imagine my surprise when the engine started at 2 AM Saturday and the lines were cast off! "Help, help... let me out!" My cries went unheard. What to do? Vesper hails from Friday Harbor, Washington, perhaps they are going to catch the last of the ebb tide out Admiralty inlet and the beginnings of the flood tide through Cattle Pass. I can check out the yachtie dumpsters in Friday Harbor and catch the Port Townsend shuttle home in the afternoon... all is well.

Someone finally came to use the head and I escaped into the main cabin. Wow, things were bouncing up and down and the "ocean was all motion" as Jimmy Buffet says. I landed on a port light to see what I could see. Bad news... Race Rocks off of Victoria, Canada to starboard -- I'm going to sea!

That night we rounded Cape Flattery and turned left. I landed on the chart table and in the dim red light read the chart title... Cape Flattery to San Francisco. Oh my, I'm going to San Francisco. Since the coast was 30 miles away, flying was out of the question. I would just have to stick it out with the rest of the crew.

I adopted Glen as my bunkmate. He had already been sick on the way out the Straights of Juan de Fuca so I had been hanging around him anyway.Besides, his shaved head was a nice place to ride when we were off watch. Jeff, Deirdre, and Bobbie all had lots of hair, which became more appealing as the trip wore on, but I stuck with my buddy. Besides, Jeff wanted to kill me and Glen wanted to wait until we arrived in San Francisco, where I could leave the boat or face the fly swatter. I owed Glen my life!

My first night offshore, I slept fitfully. Winds were light and we motored several hours. Daylight brought light northerlies and the crew settled into a watch system. We were sailing in light winds with our assymeterical spinnaker, towing a squid, when we caught our first fish in a record fifteen minutes. Jeff reeled in the nice seven pound tuna and Deirdre took over, promptly putting the fish's eye out before landing it head first in a bucket for bleeding. My. Tuna was filleted and his remains returned to the deep. Preparing to rinse the bucket out, Deirdre found My. Tuna's eye. I wanted to save it for dinner, but the crew, split between humor and disgust, tossed it overboard. We dined on barbecued tuna, thirty miles offshore that night.

The wind continued to build and the crew doused the spinnaker and poled out some of the roller-furling jib. As the wind increased, the jib size decreased. Glen went on night watch at 2 AM to find about fifty square feet of the jib set and Winona wind vane surfing Vesper through fifteen foot swells with four to five foot wind waves. The wind was thirty knots, true. I stayed safely on the main halyard winch located under the dodger. I hoped someone would get sick, but it was not to be. The crew had settled in.

After two and one half days of surfind downwind, the began to decrease and the seas settled down. Soon we were motoring in calm conditions. Many birds landed on Vesper to take a breather; they were tired from the windy conditions. I stayed below deck. Virginia Rails, Sparrows and even Gold Finches can ruin a fly's day. Many Gray Whales played around us as we plugged southward. Jeff set the squid again and had a hit in eleven minutes! He reeled in a twenty-five pound tuna. Glen and Deirdre landed it, again knocking out an eyeball. This was not going to be a pretty "head in the bucket" operation like the last tuna. This guy took up most the cross part of the "T" cockpit. All that could be done was cut him and let him bleed... and the scuppers ran red! I was in heaven, or should have been had I been able to get to the back of the cockpit. There were too many feet and fins; and Jeff still had his eyes on me.

That night we crepy around a foggy Point Reyes and dropped the hook in Drakes Bay at 10:30 PM. After the CQR was down in thirty five feet of water, the crew hugged, toasted Vesper and each other for a safe passage and fell soundly asleep. At 7:30 AM, we raised anchor and rode the beginning of the flood through Bonita Channel, around Bonita Point and under the Golden Gate Bridge. Six days from Port Townsend, I arrived in Sausalito. Man, they have great garbage and lots of cruising boats. I may have found a new life! I left Vesper and her crew, Jeff, Deirdre, Bobbie & Glen, reluctantly. They were great hosts.

And that's how Petey, the fly, sailed to San Francisco.

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