I hate a cramp,he thought.It is a treachery of one's own body.It is humiliating before others to have a diarrhoea from ptomaine poisoning or to vomit from it.But a cramp, he thought of it as a calambre,humiliates oneself especially when one is alone.
There was yellow weed on the line but the old man knew that only made an added drag and he was pleased. It was the yellow Gulf weed that had made so much phosphorescence in the night.
He thought of how some men feared being out of sight of land in a small boat and knew they were right in the months of sudden bad weather.But now they were in hurricane months and,when there are no hurricanes,the weather of hurricane months is the best of all the year.
The hawks ,he thought,that come out to sea to meet them.But he said nothing of this to the bird who could not understand him anyway and who would learn about the hawks soon enough.
Some time before daylight something took one of the baits that were behind him.He heard the stick break and the line begin to rush out over the gunwale of the skiff.In the darkness he loosened his sheath knife and taking all the strain of the fish on his left shoulder he leaned back and cut the line against the wood of the gunwale.Then he cut the other line closest to him and in the dark made the loose ends of the reserve coils fast.He worked skillfully with the one hand and put his foot on the coils to hold them as he drew his knots tight.Now he had six reserve coils of line.There were two from each bait he had severed and the two from the bait the fish had taken and they were all connected.