Journal of the seventysecond day on board

13th July, 1999

Finally … we are eating our own chum!

Time: 7,00 Finally we get out. The wind has dropped and we head towards the “Bancotto” 14 miles from Lampedusa. There, a few days ago, a fisherman saw half a tuna being carried away by a large mouth underwater. We're going to look for it.

Time: 9,30 The reef is not the biggest. We anchor around one hundred metres from a few Tunisian fishing boats. By day these boats seem abandoned, the fishermen work in the old way by night work under lamps connected by wire circuits. By day they sleep.
We don’t have to wait long before the fishing boats started to come alive. A couple of sloops arrive right by the Alicudi full of Tunisian men. They offer us sugar in return for alcohol. We don't need sugar and we're not overflowing with wine, we just want to stay calm and chum away. We've been waiting this moment for a long time but just to remain in peace we do the swap!

Time: 14,00 The Tunisians come back. They want to talk with us. We don't want them to come close because we've finished the wine and in any case having boats nearby will only frighten away the sharks. The Tunisians carry on.
“You're a problem here. We have to work tonight.”
“So do we” we reply “Stay calm. We're not fishing and you're not getting in our way”
“Yeh, but you're getting in our way. We're fishing right here"
“If you want we can move over there”
“No way. We're also fishing there.”
We are surprised and a little disturbed. “But how come? These are international waters open to everybody.”
“Its true. You can stay here but we’ll tell you this. At night boats could hit you and then damage you”
Message received. We accept the threat and weigh anchor and move away.
It's a real shame. This time there was no concern about the weather, but our safety: an argument in mid-ocean with a hundred Tunisians is not advisable.
The Tunisians apologise by giving us 4 boxes of the freshest bait.
On board there's Osvaldo and … one box of bait, just right for dinner! Buonissima.