Life in a coconut shell

Conceiving Stowaway Sam wasn’t that difficult. All it involved was an idea, some work and alcohol.

The 1-year-old vagabond, known to favor the warm Mexican waters over Southern California’s, isn’t picky. He’s traveled as far north as Washington for weeks at a time.

“He’s traveled more than I have!” said Gloria Sullivan, a Balboa Yacht Club member who helps tend to him.

Photographs have surfaced revealing that even at his young age, Sam is getting into some very adult adventures with the club members taking him out to sea. Candid photos mailed to Sullivan show Sam knocking back beers at a local Newport Beach bar, asleep in someone else’s bed and even being held at gunpoint.

“What happens in Mexico, stays in Mexico,” one letter read, relaying Sam’s latest adventure to Sullivan.

Like any concerned parent, Sullivan looks forward to the day she’ll see Sam back in his hometown of Newport Beach once again, though she’s not sure when that’ll be.

You see, Sullivan said, it’s pretty easy to lose track of a hollowed-out coconut.

It all started in Mexico, when Sullivan, Sally Huzyak and others were relaxing on the beach and discussing how to talk about their trips without making it sound repetitive after years of visiting the same areas.

They needed a new angle, Huzyak said, a way for yacht club members to get excited to share their vacation stories with the club’s newsletter. Like an idea plucked out of thin air, the women plucked a brown coconut off the sandy beach. Four people, nail polish and 60 minutes was all it took to crack open the coconut and create Stowaway Sam, the club’s unofficial mascot.

“It’s to drum up cruising in general,” Sullivan said. “A lot of people go and don’t really write about it. Sometimes they never tell people. [Sam] gives them a reason to write and say ‘This is what we did with Sam.’”

With expressive eyes, thick eyebrows and full, drawn-on lips, Stowaway Sam has become quite popular. Club members never know where Sam is going to end up. One day you’ll open your refrigerator, laundry basket or pull back the sheets and find him there, with a little poem attached explaining who he is and what he’s doing there.

“He’s a little bit of a hot potato: You don’t want to carry him for too long,” said Chris Killian, a yacht club member. “Everyone at the club has a story. Stowaway Sam is kind of, you know, a way to tell your little story.”

“After sightings at Phillo’s and other local La Cruz haunts, Sam left us and jumped aboard the BYC boat known as Free Range Chicken,” wrote Diane Fradkin from Mexico.

That was the last time anyone saw Sam, who was unavailable for comment. Many of Sam’s adventures can be found in the yacht club’s monthly publication, The Talewind.

STOWAWAY SAM

If you’re surprised to see me aboard,

Please don’t toss me overboard!

As I’ve been secretly stowed on your boat,

By a fellow BYC cruising bloke.

E-mail home your adventures to date,

And please include photos of us as mates.

And if in your travels you should see,

Another yacht’s black and orange burgee,

Then secretly stow me on that other boat

So they’ll know to send The Talewind a note.

Reporter JOSEPH SERNA may be reached at (714) 966-4619 or at [email protected].