And never tell anybody where you made a good catch. Never count your fish until the day is over. Don’t eat anything before the first fish is caught, and the first one caught each day must be spit upon and thrown back. And empty your pockets of pennies before boarding or your catch will be small. A fisher whose finger is stuck by a fishhook will stick the hook into a piece of wood to speed the healing process.ĭon’t bring bananas on board, or you won’t catch any fish. Other bad omens include a black valise, a minister and a cross-eyed or flat-footed person. If they see a red-haired person on the way to the boat it’s bad luck. Even with GPS and sensitive fathometers, catching those critters is still a matter of luck. Salted Nets Catch FishĪmong today’s seafarers, fishers are the leaders in the superstition department. Since divers spend so much time aboard boats it might be fun to examine some of them. A few beliefs are based on a semblance of fact, but the majority have no rhyme or reason. When it comes to superstition, though, divers are bush leaguers compared with sailors and fishermen. Although she is aware that a failed computer dive can’t be carried over to the tables, those plastic tables are comforting to her. Another diver carries a copy of the dive tables along with two computers. One diver won’t leave the dock without his lucky hat. I still have my lucky towel and take it on every dive trip, whether it’s one day off the coast of San Diego or several weeks halfway around the world.īy and large, divers are a pragmatic lot and none of the ones I surveyed admitted to any superstitions. But I wrote it off to pilot error, rationalizing that the towel wasn’t to blame it was totally my fault. That belief was put to the test when I failed to tighten a screw on my housing and flooded a Nikon N90, destroying it. It was more ritual than superstition, but I believed that as long as the towel was in the cooler, my camera wouldn’t flood. As the years went by, I began to refer to it as my lucky towel. It found a home at the bottom of the cooler that held my camera gear. It was a horrible hodgepodge of pink, green, and yellow pastels depicting palm trees, sailboats, and domed desert dwellings. I lost my towel and needed a substitute, so I bought the cheapest and ugliest one I could find, figuring nobody would ever pick it up by mistake. About 20 years ago I was spending an entire summer in the Red Sea, working on my first book. Yet talk long enough to a diver, and something may come up that defies logic. Rituals like spitting in a mask or backing off the valve a quarter turn are based on science and education. Maybe it’s because diving is securely grounded in fact, and it didn’t get started among the general populace until the mid-20th century. Curiously, they haven’t extended to scuba diving. Many superstitions about the sea survive to this day. Although the story has about as much credibility as an Internet hoax, it vividly illustrates the power of superstition. The last time anybody ever saw it or the crew was when it disappeared over the horizon. Its captain’s name was Friday, and it set sail for her maiden voyage on … you guessed it … Friday. According to legend, the ship’s keel was laid on Friday, it was launched on Friday, and christened the HMS Friday. There’s a tale often told, almost certainly apocryphal, about the British navy’s attempt to lay that superstition to rest. That’s considered an unlucky day on land as well, probably because it was the day of the crucifixion. Some superstitions may have had a tenuous basis in fact, but most were contrived beliefs and rituals that sailors relied upon to give them a feeling that, to some small extent, they had some control over their destiny.įor example, it is considered unlucky to begin a voyage on Friday. Going to sea then was chancier than going into outer space today, so a mariner’s life was rife with superstitions. Pitchers won’t step on the foul line coming off the field, and woe to anybody who dares mention a no-hitter while the game is in progress. A hitter on a hot streak may not wash his socks or undershirt, or will eat the same breakfast every day as long as he keeps getting on base. Small wonder that you grasp at any support you can, whether real or imaginary.Įven today, any endeavor based on chance is predisposed to superstition, ranging from poker to baseball. The captain is the absolute dictator the ship is his kingdom. You are virtually isolated from the rest of humanity. There is no marine weather forecast, no radio, no satellite communication in fact no communication with the world as you knew it for periods ranging from months to years. You are a 19th-century mariner, living in the dank, dark quarters of a sailing ship, at the mercy of capricious wind and weather, six weeks from your last sighting of land.
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