86 Man Against Shark 



one day, I was startled to see a school of big sharks swimming from the wind- 

 ward side of Tortola and into The Gut. Then came another school, and another. 

 The Gut was filling with sharks which would normally be found only at sea. 



I was excitedly planning the strategy for an epic shark hunt in The Gut 

 when one of my native shark-catchers politely suggested that I should be 

 planning for a hurricane instead. It was hurricane obeah, he explained, that had 

 sent those sharks to the shelter of The Gut. And hurricane obeah had sent the 

 smaller fishes away, for the fish pots put out the night before were nearly 

 empty in the morning. It was another sign. 



Call it instinct, obeah, intuition— Tortola's people knew a hurricane was 

 coming, and they knew it would be a bad one that would strike their island 

 hard. (I learned later that the Governor of the nearby Virgin Islands had been 

 warned of the hurricane by natives long before the official forecast had reached 

 him. Acting only on the natives' warning, the Governor sent out a hurricane 

 alert that enabled the islands to batten down for the blow.) 



No amount of money would have lured my shark-catchers to sea. They 

 were drawing up their boats from the water, nailing fast the shutters of their 

 homes, taking their barrels of precious rain water inside. 



Our two big boats— the Venus and the /. H. S?nith— had to be anchored as 

 firmly as possible. We put down four anchors fore and aft on the Venus. The 

 Smith had two big anchors well bedded in the coral. We put down two more. 

 But my helpers advised me to string a heavy line from the S^nith to shore, and 

 make the line fast to a sturdy coconut tree. This was necessary, they told me, 

 because, after blowing in from the sea, the hurricane would suddenly shift and 

 blow outward from the shore in the direction of the Smith. No safety line was 

 necessary for the Venus, they said, since the ofT-shore wind would not bother it. 



We had made our preparations just in time. Our work done, I started for 

 my cottage atop a hill. Halfway up, I was flattened by a mighty gust. I crawled 

 the rest of the way on my hands and knees. I nailed down the windows and 

 door of my cottage from the inside, and, alone, waited out the hurricane. Above 

 the winds I could occasionally hear the bleating of goats which had sought 

 shelter under my cottage. The cottage was built 4 feet above the ground to 

 allow the buffeting winds to pass through, thus weakening their force. For 

 24 hours my little cottage shivered, but it was not even weakened. A straw- 

 thatched native hut, built on the ground next door to me, was swept away early 

 in the storm. 



The day after the hurricane was calm and clear. I rushed down to the water- 

 front to inspect the damage. There was none. Both the Smith and the Venus still 

 rode at anchor. An off-shore blast had hit the S?nith, as my native weathermen 

 had predicted, but the coconut tree anchor had held. 



Weeks passed before the small fish returned to shore and began appearing 

 again in the fish pots. And not until they reappeared did the hungry sharks 

 return from their hurricane haven. 



When shark-catching was back to normal on Tortola, I put John Neville, 

 the man with the scent of shark, in charge of the station. I then set up a smaller 

 station, as an auxiliary to Tortola, on the island of Anegada, about 40 miles 

 away. I left this in the hands of native supervisors. Once more, I had finished 

 a job and was anxious to get started on another one. 



