Santiago works with nature, fishing where the bird leads, but neither he nor the bird have any luck. Through his experience and his fisherman's skill, he recognizes that the bird is following a school of flying fish, themselves pursued by a school of big dolphin. Santiago sees a man-of-war bird circling in the sky ahead of him. Santiago briefly reflects that all his life the early morning sun has hurt his eyes, yet again catches himself, keeping in mind that his eyes are still good and in the evening he can look into the sun without getting the blackness. But he quickly reminds himself that each day is a new day and that, while it is better to be lucky, he prefers to be exact so that he will be ready when the luck finally comes. For a moment, he reluctantly admits that, despite his precision, he has no luck anymore. He loops each line onto a green-sapped stick, so that even a touch on the bait will make the stick dip, and connects the coils of line so that a fish can run out more than 300 fathoms if necessary.Īs he fishes, Santiago takes pride in keeping his lines straighter than anyone, even though he knows that other fishermen sometimes let their lines drift with the current. He uses the albacores Manolin bought for him and a big blue runner and a yellow jack he had from before, using the sardines to give them scent and attractiveness. He sets his baits at precise depths and ties and sews them so that all the hook is concealed and sweet smelling and good tasting to a fish.
Santiago rows effortlessly, not disturbing the ocean's surface but working with the current, letting it do a third of the work.
Whereas Santiago affectionately refers to the sea as la mar (using the Spanish feminine), they say el mar (using the Spanish masculine). He also thinks about the differences between himself and the younger fishermen who float their lines on buoys and use motorboats bought with money they earned selling shark livers. So this day, he plans to row far out to sea, in search of a really big fish.Īs he rows, Santiago hears the flying fish he regards as friends and feels sympathy for the delicate sea birds that must fish to survive and must cope with an ocean that can be beautiful yet cruel. He has fished such deep wells without success on previous days of this long stretch without a catch. He passes the phosphorescence of some Gulf weed and one of the deep wells where many fish and other sea creatures congregate. He hears the other fishermen leaving in their boats but cannot see them in the dark. Alone in his boat, in the dark of early morning, Santiago rows out to sea.
0 kommentar(er)
