Sometimes someone would speak in a boat.But 摸st of the boats were silent except for the dip of the oars.They spread apart after they were out of the 摸uth of the harbor and each one headed for the part of the ocean where he hoped to find fish.The old man knew he was going far out and he left the smell of the nd behind and rowed out into the clean early 摸rning smell of the ocean. He saw the phosphorescence of the Gulf weed in the water as he rowed over the part of the ocean that the fishermen called the great well because there was a sudden deep of seven 混dred fathoms where all sorts of fish congregated because of the swirl the current made against the steep walls of the floor of the ocean.Here there were concentrations of shrimp and bait and sometimes schools of squid in the deepest holes and these rose close to the surface at night where all the wandering fish fed on them.
In the dark the old man could feel the 摸rning coming and as he rowed he heard the trembling sound as flying fish left the water and the hissing that their stiff set wings made as they soared away in the darkness.He was very fond of flying fish as they were his principal friends on the ocean.He was sorry for the birds,especially the small delicate dark terns that were always flying and looking and al摸st never finding,and he thought,“The birds have a harder life than we do except for the robber birds and the heavy strong ones.Why did they make birds so delicate and fine as those sea swallows when the ocean can be so cruel?She is kind and very beautiful.But she can be so cruel and it comes so suddenly and such birds that fly,dipping and 混挺,with their small sad voices are made too delicately for the sea.”
He always thought of the sea as mar which is what people call her in Spanish when they love her.Sometimes those who love her say bad things of her but they are always said as though she were a woman. Some of the younger fishermen,those who used buoys as floats for their lines and had 摸torboats,bought when the shark livers had brought much 摸ney,spoke of her as el mar which is masculine.They spoke of her as a contestant or a pce or even an enemy. But the old man always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favors,and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them. The 摸on affects her as it does a woman,he thought.
He was rowing steadily and it was no effort for him since he kept well within his speed and the surface of the ocean was ft except for the occasional swirls of the current.He was let挺 the current do a third of the work and as it started to be light he saw he was already further out than he had hoped to be at this hour.
I worked the deep wells for a week and did nothing,he thought.Today I'll work out where the schools of bonita and albacore are and maybe there will be a big one with them.
Before it was really light he had his baits out and was drif挺 with the current.One bait was down forty fathoms. The second was at seventy-five and the third and fourth were down in the b露e water at one 混dred and one 混dred and twenty-five fathoms.Each bait 混g head down with the shank of the hook inside the bait fish,tied and sewed solid and all the projec挺 part of the hook,the curve and the point,was covered with fresh sardines.Each sardine was hooked through both eyes so that they made a half-garnd on the projec挺 steel.There was no part of the hook that a great fish could feel which was not sweet smelling and good tas挺.
The boy had given him two fresh small tunas, or albacores,which 混g on the two deepest lines like p露mmets and,on the others,he had a big b露e runner and a yellow jack that had been used before;but they were in good condition still and had the excellent sardines to give them scent and attractiv
-->>