Journal of the sixtythird day on board

4th July, 1999

When science hobbles on, one's 'nose' becomes important. I have a huge one but even today its of no use’.We are 11 miles from Lampedusa on the Levant reef, one of the 4 star restaurants in the Mediterranean with white bream, sea urchins and ravens gather in numbers.

Many of the fishermen of Porto Palo, Siracusa, Catania and Malta have told us: "go to Lampedusa on the Levant reef. You will find sharks in abundance."
Fine, we are here above the famous reef at last on a day of dead calm. We are still at a depth of 30 metres and we have been chumming intensely since yesterday.

On the bottom there is a lot of life but on the surface there are no fins.

My nose tells me that we must move on and not remain above this reef but the advice of the experts and locals, despite the impossibility of weighing anchor at this depth, is to stay here. Not for ever however: chumming for less than 6 hours is worthless but to persevere for more than 40 seems to be verging on the ridiculous. Tomorrow "o la spa o la vacca" . If we don't see any teeth, were off!

Other reefs and Lampione are waiting for us.