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Journal
of the fortyfirst day on board
12th June, 1999
If it
carries on like this, it will be easier to contribute to the
updating of the "pilot book" than to our knowledge
of Mediterranean sharks.
We are spending many days kept in the ports because of the bad
weather.
Simona
Clo' has left, Marco
Costantini has arrived. The wind and the
biologists are working together, first the 'scirocco' wind,
then the 'greco' wind, now the north wind, but its always the
same in the end. The sea is swollen with high and rangy waves.
The Maltese and Sicilian fishing boats (almost 40 metres long)
are not leaving the port.
Never mind it will be better in a few days.
We take the opportunity to pass the laptop to Marco.
 "Hopefully
we can reach Filfla soon. It seems the right sort of place.
Those of you following us from home are probably a little "depressed":
In some 40 days all we have seen is a fin, that of a splendid
'verdesca'.
But it's true that things go that way with sharks. There's nothing
we can do.
The sea is huge and it seems that these fish are always swimming
in another part.
You're travelling between the ports and the fishermen tell you
they saw sharks at the "Verdarola" shallows.
So you rush to the shallows but there's nothing.
You go back and they say to you that perhaps they were at the
"Shark Bank".
Quickly you rush to the Bank and nothing!
Who knows, perhaps they are going "back and forth"
between the shallows and the bank and we are going "forth
and back" between the bank and the shallows. And as they
cross us they blow a raspberry....
Joking apart, the times we meet any type of shark is unusually
low which is making the research and study in a way even more
fascinating."
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