Page 2 - Finned_fury_1960

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Once a year the sea boils with tuna and the fishermen of Favignana
gamble bloody death against a golden sea harvest in the fleeting.

FOUR DOZEN weather-burned men
in four open ,boats wait quietly in the
early morning mists as a steam-driven tug
tows them in rope-linked line out to sea
from the tiny Egadi group of islands west
of Trapani, Sicily. It is four a.m. and cold
on the water. The men shiver in their
dirty old clothes, warmed only by the
knowledge that in another hour they will
be at the nets. With luck, they will make
the long awaited mattanza—the tuna kill.
They can return with full boats, or they
can come home empty, frustrated by the
sea, committed to another mattanza try
on the following day, or the day after that,
or every day until the season ends.
Each year the meaty, tasty, profit-filled
tuna appear in vast schools off the shores
of Sicily en route south on a mass spawn-
Men set out to sea—for tuna, or another day of dismal failure. ing migration. Since the time of the ancient
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