We’re Gonna Need A Bigger Boat!
One of Hemingway’s great passions was fishing, and as a group of unsuspecting sharks learned, you don’t mess with his catch! While on a trip to the Bahamas in 1935, he used a Thompson submachine gun to open fire on a frenzy of sharks who were trying to steal the giant tuna he was after. So that’s where the idea for The Old Man and the Sea’s protagonist protecting his marlin came from. How different it would have been if Santiago had a submachine gun!
The blood from the gunfire only stirred up the sharks and brought in more numbers! That day, the sharks won. Hemingway made up for the loss by setting a world record in 1938 by netting seven marlins in one day. The moral of the story? Bait works better than bullets.
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