A SHARK'S TALE
(or How a Man-eater Became Man-eaten!)
At about our seventy first day at sea, while transiting
the Pacific, we noticed that one of our trailing stern fishlines, was taut as
a bowstring. We began to laboriously pull the line in hand-over-hand. The
fish was obviously large, but we really didn't know what we had, until we
could pull it in closer and raise it to the surface, for better
viewing.
We had hooked a large seven-eight foot Blue
shark. This species of shark is prolific in the Pacific and is known to
inhabit deep water. The shark is also known as a Whale shark, as it
is the same shark that used to ravage the carcasses of killed whales,
that were lashed to the hulls of the whaling ships, during the nineteenth
century.
As we gradually coaxed the fish closer to the stern, it
fought ferociously. We were hoping to land this morsel, as we had not captured
any fresh food in weeks and the divine providence of this leviathan of
the sea, was too good to pass up. It was decided that we would have to
subdue the fish, before we could pull it any closer. Ove Linner, had a trusty
Enfield '03 bolt action army rifle, that he had acquired, while in South
Africa. It was used for occasions such as this. He shot the shark about five
times as it was gradually pulled closer to the ship. We were then able to
successfully gaff the shark, slip a steel-cable noose around its
head, and hoist it aboard. We supped on shark for weeks after this. The
photos in this sequence show the action.
As it turned out, this particular shark was able to
extract a bit of retribution. One evening, several weeks later, my watchmates
were sitting in the crew-galley with me, after a long trick on the
pumps and getting ready for the evening meal. Grilled shark with rice. Oh
joy! The entire shark based dining theme had worn paper thin by now,
as we had been eating that same shark for breakfast, lunch and dinner,
for what seemed an eternity. The menu varieties were endless, but they
always included shark prepared in an amazing number of inventive ways; smoked,
fried, broiled, steamed, stewed, baked, barbecued, slab steak,
kabobs, etc. etc. On this particular night I sank my teeth into a healthy dollop
of steak and immediately chomped down on something hard. At first, I thought
maybe I had broken a tooth - not an endearing thought two-thousand miles from
the nearest dentist. I slowly began to work the bolus of food around in my
mouth and out came the copper jacket and lead fragments of a bullet, we
had used to dispatch the shark. After this incident, I was more
circumspect about chewing so exuberantly on our fish catches.
Ove Shooting
Blue Shark Coming Aboard
Blue Shark 75
Shark With Bullet Holes
Shark Dinner
Ove and Shark
Vic Spencer Collection