Perhaps I should not have been a fisherman,he thought. But that was the thing that I was born for. I must surely remember to eat the tuna after it gets light.
“I am not religious ,”he said.“But I will say ten Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys that I should catch this fish,and I promise to make a pilgrimage to the Virgin de Cobre if I catch him.That is a promise.”
Shifting the weight of the line to his left shoulder and kneeling carefully he washed his hand in the ocean and held it there, submerged , for more than a minute watching the blood trail away and the steady movement of the water against his hand as the boat moved.
Just then the fish gave a sudden lurch that pulled the old man down onto the bow and would have pulled him overboard if he had not braced himself and given some line.
“He's headed north,”the old man said.The current will have set us far to the eastward,he thought.I wish he would turn with the current.That would show that he was tiring.