Page 349 - The Tigris Expedition

Front Asia to Africa; front Meluhha to Punt

rubber lifebuoy, and the men were preparing a huge hook with a
short chain tied to the strong tow-rope. Carlo had put a small shark
on as bait, and he caught the big hammerhead to everybody’s
excitement. A long battle followed with our end of the rope finally
tied to the stern log, whereupon the fish pulled us 20° out of course.
The captured shark churned the water, then went deep in all
directions, and as it came up under us the rope was caught up in the
guara aft, which started to waggle above deck. We pulled the guara
up. For a while the giant was hammering at our bottom and our
wake began to fill with tiny reed fragments. Finally everything
grew calm below, but we could not pull in the rope with all our
combined strength. HP had made us a small diver’s basket of
bamboo and rope, following the design we had invented on Kon-
Tiki. Feeling braver now with my swimming trunks on, I crawled
in when the basket was hoisted overboard. To everybody’s disap­
pointment but my own relief I found the big hook empty, stuck
deep into the reed bottom of our ship. Swimming around me were
only our familiar escort, including smaller sharks of a white-finned
type we no longer feared. The hammerheaded monster was gone; it
looked as if it had made a joke of its own name by hammering
the hook so deep into the bottom of Tigris that we hardly got
it out. It had swallowed the big bait as payment for the
effort.
Since the time when we led a daily life with sharks around and
upon the Kon-Tiki raft, it has been abundantly clear to me that
sharks can be just as friendly and just as ferocious as men in and out
of uniform. Even one individual shark can change in temperament
from one moment to the next. The entourage of Tigris consisted of
almost charming sharks. That is, though belonging to a detested
and carnivorous species, they contrasted with the hammerhead
shark both in conduct and appearance and left us with a feeling of
sympathy.
Sharks came and left throughout the voyage, but only after we
sailed from Karachi did we really make close contact. Their number
varied from day to day, but increased as we sailed, and seventeen
were counted in our company the day we fought the hammerhead.
Their sizes varied from three feet to the length of a man, sometimes
more, and at the beginning it was we who were the predators and
they the victims. It was too easy to catch them and no sport fighting
them; they hardly put up the battle of a dolphin. And they were far
less popular as food, even when soaked to reduce the ammonia.
Soon even the keenest fisherman was apologetic to the rest of us if

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