Some of the younger fishermen, those who used buoys as floats for their lines and had motorboats, bought when the shark livers had brought much money, spoke of her as el mar which is masculine.
They spoke of her as a contestant or a place or even an enemy.
But the old man always thought of her as feminine and as something that gave or withheld great favours, and if she did wild or wicked things it was because she could not help them.
The moon affects her as it does a woman, he thought.
He was rowing steadily and it was no effort for him since he kept well within his speed and the surface of the ocean was flat except for the occasional swirls of the current.
He was letting the current do a third of the work and as it started to be light he saw he was already further out than he had hoped to be at this hour.
I worked the deep wells for a week and did nothing, he thought. Today I'll work out where the schools of bonita and albacore are and maybe there will be a big one with them.
Before it was really light he had his baits out and was drifting with the current.
One bait was down forty fathoms.
The second was at seventy-five and the third and fourth were down in the blue water at one hundred and one hundred and twenty-five fathoms.