134 DAHLAK 



with the suspicious grin of a real 'tiger'. This time they were 

 not so shy; they were, on the contrary, intrusively arrogant, 

 especially the blue sharks. Vailati rubbed his hands with 

 great satisfaction when he told about it at Mersa Nasi: 

 'Once they come, they don't just go off again. They stay and 

 buzz around . . .' The silent comment on Tesfankièl's face 

 seemed to be: 'If you're not nuts . . .' 



There were plenty of sharks, especially on the other side 

 of the reef. Going under with Gigi I came across a big 

 travelling saurus. I wanted to try a flying shot and hit the 

 middle of its silvery yellow body. Flash — and there were five 

 black-fins on the spot making grabs at the fish, retiring in 

 fear, then conaing back again. ... It was always the same 

 story. We only had to plug a 'white fish' to bring at least a 

 pair of sharks into the neighbourhood. On the following day, 

 however, we noticed a complete change in the situation. The 

 sharks kept coming from early morning. Then later, in spite 

 of the continued killings, which we intensified just to enable 

 us to photograph the sharks, they made no more appearances. 

 We were paying the price of not having given them some- 

 thing to eat; evidently they were convinced that there was 

 nothing to be had from those arrogant, butchering monsters. 



But if the sharks were no longer enticed to the fish we 

 killed, we did manage to entice a grouper. 



Gigi went down about thirty feet on the open side of the 

 reef. He hit a twelve pound grouper which thereupon took 

 refuge in its hole. Leaving my gun on the sand I went down 

 to pull, but it did not come out. We went up for air and then 

 down again. As I got hold of the arrow which was sticking 

 out of the hole, Gigi nudged me and pointed to something 

 behind. His face behind the glass of the mask was tense with 



