舌尖上的航海丨第7集 最后的“鲨鱼宴”

“兄弟”号歺厅一隅，有套奇特的歺桌和歺椅，吸引了众多人的目光和好奇。

这是一套用鲨鱼骨架拼凑而成的；雪白而形状各异的骨架，搭成十分别緻的桌椅，古怪又有趣。

更令人惊异的是，歺桌上竖着一块用中英文写的木牌：“最后的鲨鱼宴“几个字。

”兄弟”号是艘来往亚洲和非洲的定期集装葙班轮。

在赤道附近的非洲海域锚地，船体周围浮游着各式各样的鱼类，特别引人注目的则是“海中霸王”鲨鱼。人们称这里是鲨鱼的“天堂”。

鲨鱼贪食易钓。船锚泊期间，是船员垂钓鲨鱼的良好时机，也是船员喜爱的娱乐活动。鲨鱼一般1一2米长，重六七十公斤，大的有一二百公斤，常常结群而行，浩浩荡荡，十分贪食。尤其大风天气过后，海水浑浊，鲨鱼疲乏饥饿极易上钓。船员用细铁条制成尺把长的轮型”鱼钩”，以各类鱼和肉食做诱饵，将鱼钩抛至鲨鱼群游动的前方，鲨鱼就会猛扑过来，咬住鱼钩死死不放。有经验的船员用手指粗的细缆做钓绳，下端接上两米长的铁链条，防止钩绳被鲨鱼锋利的牙齿咬断。钩绳一端系在船桩或缆柱上，以免鲨鱼上钩挣扎时扭断人的手指和臂膀，待鲨鱼挣扎无力时再取钩。取钩时往往需要几人合力，甚至动用船上绞缆机邦忙。鲨鱼被钓上来时，仍然拼命用尾巴不仃地拍打甲板。人们用帚把和木棒有节奏地朝鲨鱼身上敲打，直到鲨鱼服服贴贴“束手就擒“为止。

人们将鲨鱼肉烹调成”鲨鱼宴“，鱼肯做成玩具甚至有的别出心裁做成“乐器”，与当地的居民饮酒狂歌。

赤道钩鲨成了船员一项特别的“活动”。

”兄弟”号船员喜爱这项活动是首航非洲不久。

一天，船在锚地抛锚等待泊位。当地热心的船舶代理，为增加船员生话乐趣，特地给船上带来一部，以真实资料为基础拍成的动画片：”鲨鱼之杰"。

“鲨鱼之杰“遒述了十九世纪初期。一艘海盗船偷盗了英国海军一份绝密文件，海盗被捕后拒不认罪交待。正当审判进入僵局时，一艘英国军舰在加勒比海的赫坦岛捕到一尾鲨鱼，在鲨鱼胃里发现一本完整无损的笔记夲，经鉴定，正是海盗拋入大海的”绝密文件”。事实面前，海盗船长被处以绞刑。这具鲨鱼标本被放置在牙买加“海洋博物馆“。被人们誉为“鲨鱼之杰”。

这部动画片引起了“兄弟”号船员的极大兴趣；鲨鱼不仅能食用，鲨鱼胃还是一个“天然保险櫃“哩！

”兄弟”号船员开始在此海域大显身上，采用一切办法诱钓鲨鱼。

一次，他们钓到一条足有二百斤重的深兰色大鲨鱼。破腹时，被鲨鱼吞食的鱼虾还活蹦乱跳，胃里还有五花八门的东西；小海龟，铁器，衣物，公文包…。

“兄弟”号船员兴奋之余，将鲨鱼肉做成了丰盛的“鲨鱼宴”，把鱼骨制成了奇形怪状的桌椅。

“兄弟“号歺厅一隅，鲨鱼骨制成的桌椅，成了船员享受“鲨鱼宴”的宝地，吸引了众多人的眼球和关注。

在非洲赤道海域钓鲨，享受“鲨鱼宴”成了“兄弟”号船员的专利！

但是，享受“鲨鱼宴”的好日子没坚持多久，一次偶然的变故，使奇特的鲨鱼骨歺桌上竖了块禁食令：最后的鲨鱼宴。

事情发生在1986年的秋天。

”兄弟”号调来一位名叫邹波的船长。

这天，正值”中秋节“，“兄弟”号锚泊在非洲赤道附近一个锚地。船上准备了丰盛的节日佳肴，“鲨鱼宴”自然少不了。

谁知，邹波船长围着热腾腾的”鲨鱼宴”绕了圈，迟迟没有下筷。

邹波船长却讲一个人们意想不到的故事。

几年前，邹波船长在一艘远航美洲的船上做船长，船靠泊在美国佛罗里达州一个港口。

这天，正值正值圣诞节前夜。天刚亮，寂静的码头陡然聚集了大批游行的人群，人们高举着绘有大鲨鱼的标牌，高喊着禁止捕杀鲨鱼的标牌！

原来一年前的圣诞节前夜，佛罗里达州一位名叫罗莎淋的女大学生约两名同学，乘船去游览馬勒庫岛风景区。返程路上，因游船漏水翻沉。人们穿上救生衣争先恐后爬上救生艇。不幸，罗莎琳和两名同学被风浪甩在海里。他们拼命朝远方的陆地游去…。

风浪越来越大，他们无法游向远方的陆地。就在这时，一个黑色物体朝罗莎琳冲过来。

罗莎琳定睛一看，原是一条二米多长的大鲨鱼。锋利的牙齿闪着吓人的光芒。罗莎淋知道遭遇了”杀人魔鬼”，自已必死无疑，紧闭双眼死抱看救生衣，等待恶运的到来。但是，奇迹发生了；鲨鱼只咬住她的救生衣，丝毫没有伤害她的意思。就在此刻，她的身边又冒出一条大鲨鱼。两条鲨鱼一左一右，伴护着罗莎琳朝陆地游去，不时轮流用头推她前进。更令人意外的是，一条鲨鱼突然潜入水中，不一刻，将一条咬掉尾巴的海鱼推到罗莎琳面前。饥肠辘辘的罗莎琳，边游边吃起半截鱼来。

暮色降临，一架救援的直升机发现了罗莎琳，朝她抛下了救援绳梯。罗莎琳拼命爬上救援绳梯。這时，两条鲨鱼才恋恋不捨地潜入海底…。

罗莎琳医治痊愈后，得知两位同学已葬身大海，她却因鲨鱼营救而幸免遇难。

鲨鱼救人的故事，很多传遍了佛罗里达州。

人们在感动之时，每当圣诞节前夜，都会自发来到海边，举行游行活动，在纪念鲨人救人的同时，呼吁人们不要乱捕鲨鱼…。

“这是一个真实的故事。”邹波船长郑重地说：“爰护海洋生物是每个地球人的责任。近来，通过经过多方调查硏究，发现百分之九十八以上的鯊魚不会轻是伤人，可以与人类和平共处。世界许多地方自发组织了《绿色和平组织》，反对滥杀海洋生物！“

In the grand terrace of the CL Brotherhood, there is a table and a

chair that has garnered the attention of many of the ship’s visitors.

This pair of dining furniture was assembled from the skeleton of a

shark. The ash white bones of the shark were constructed into an eerily

shaped table and an unnaturally formed chair, giving people the impression

of a puzzling story.

What was even more absurd, was that there was a plank placed on the

table that read in both English and Chinese, “The Last Shark Feast”.

The CL Brotherhood is a container ship that travels between Asia and

Africa on a busy schedule. Whenever the Brotherhood dropped its anchors

near the equator on its way to Africa, its sailors often noticed many

different forms of marine life gathering around the ship, including the

king of all fish, sharks. The regions off the coast of Africa are sometimes

known as the sharks’ paradise.

Because of how common they were in these seas, crews that sailed past

the region sometimes took an interest in trying to catch the sharks. The

sharks were around 1-2 meters in size, they weighed anywhere between 80 to

260 pounds, and normally travelled in a shiver. Sharks also loved to eat

and prey on smaller animals, which made them an vulnerable target for the

sailors. Especially after windy days at sea when the waters were turbid,

the hungry and tired sharks were extremely easy to catch.

The sailors filed a thin iron bar into the shape of a fish hook and

used all sorts of small fish and meat as bait. As soon as they threw the

hook out in the direction of where the shivers of sharks were swimming, the

sharks would race towards the hook and bite onto it firmly with no chance

of letting go. Experienced mariners used ropes that were thicker than their

fingers as the fishing rod and connected them to a metal chain that could

prevent the fish from chewing the rod in half. One end of the fishing rod

was always tied to the side of the ship in order to prevent losing a

struggle with the shark as the sailors pulled it up. Still, it usually took

at least several people to drag the shark up to the boat, and the shark

would continue to struggle as long as it was still alive. After the sailors

dragged the shark on deck, it fiercely striked the floorboards with its

tail, desperate to return to the ocean. The men then used brooms or wooden

boards to beat the shark to death, and then prepare a “shark feast” with

the shark’s body. Any remaining bones were given to locals and made into

instruments or artworks.

During their first voyage to Africa, the crew of the Brotherhood became

interested in this activity. As they waited for its berth at the anchorage,

the local port manager decided to give the crew of the Brotherhood a gift

to help them kill time. The gift contained an animated film called “The

Shark Hero”.

“The Shark Hero” told a story set in the early 19th century. A pirate

ship had stolen a top secret document from the British Navy, and refused to

confess to their crimes even after they were captured. Just as the trial

went into a deadlock, a British warship captured a shark in the Caribbean

Seas and found a notebook inside of its stomach. The notebook was none

other than the stolen documents from the British Navy, and the pirate

captain was sentenced to walk the plank. The skeleton of the shark was

preserved and put on display in a Maritime Museum in Jamaica, and given the

name “The Shark Hero”.

The crew of the Brotherhood was enthralled by the movie. Not only did

sharks make for a good meal, they also held the key to a pirate mystery.

Curious, the sailors on the Brotherhood attempted to copy the exact methods

of other sailors in order to catch a shark.

Once, the Brotherhood sailors caught a dark blue shark that weighed a

total of 250 pounds. To their amazement, after they cut open the stomach of

the shark, they found that the shark had swallowed an enormous range of

different items, including small animals that were still alive and moving:

small turtles, ironware, clothes, and even briefcases…

The crew of the Brotherhood were beyond excited to have caught such a

large shark, and promptly made the shark into a scrumptious “shark

feast”, and arranged the remaining skeleton into an odd set of furniture.

Since the Brotherhood often traversed around Africa, where sharks

frequented, the seafarers on the Brotherhood began to hunt for sharks more

and more often. However, the Brotherhood’s days of hunting sharks did not

last for very long.

During the fall of 1986, a new captain named Zou Bo was assigned to the

Brotherhood. In order to welcome their new captain, the crew decided to

prepare a grand Mid-Autumn Festival dinner, complete with a shark feast as

its main course.

But as Captain Zou Bo noticed the shark, he pranced around the table

and stared at it, without ever moving his chopsticks.

Captain Zou Bo silenced his crew, and told them an extraordinary story.

A few years ago, Zou Bo was the captain of a steamship that sailed to

America. It docked in a port off the coast of Florida on Christmas Eve.

On Christmas Day, to Zou Bo’s astonishment, a large crowd of

protestors gathered on the silent harbor, holding signs and chanting for

the state to ban the hunting and killing of sharks!

It turns out, that exactly one year ago, a college student from Florida

named Rosalyn was visiting the Malekula Islands on vacation with two of her

friends. On their way back home, the ship that they took sank horrifically

due to an unfortunate water leak. All the other passengers scrambled and

fought to get a space on the liferafts, but Rosalyn and her friends were

swept into the ocean by harsh waves and rigorous ocean winds. They mustered

all their strength to swim to the nearby islands, but…

The swells on the sea grew heavier and bleaker, and Rosalyn realized

that she couldn’t reach the island that was far in her horizon.

As she was about to give up, Rosalyn noticed that a dark figure had

been dashing towards her in the water. Trying arduously to stay afloat,

Rosalyn fixed her gaze on the figure and realized that it was a gigantic

shark, probably over two meters in length. Its teeth glowed with a

frightening flare, and Rosalyn knew that she had come face to face with the

devil of the ocean. She shut her eyes tightly and hung on to her life

jacket, knowing she was only minutes away from death.

Except that she wasn’t. As if a miracle, the shark tugged gently at

her life jacket and didn’t show any intention of hurting her. Another

shark popped up next to Rosalyn, and the two sharks, one guarding her on

each side, nudged her softly towards the land. With two sharks as her

guardian angels, Rosalyn swam between the two of them and somehow regained

all her strength. Even more remarkably, one of the sharks dived deep into

the sea, surfaced with a small fish in his mouth, and pushed it against

Rosalyn. Exhausted and starving, Rosalyn gracefully accepted the gift from

her newly found shark buddies and wolfed it down while continuing to swim

towards shore.

As the sun set beyond the sea, a rescue helicopter spotted Rosalyn on a

nearby island and dropped a rescue ladder towards her. With the last

remaining bit of her strength, she climbed up the ladder and towards

safety. Only then did the two sharks slowly retreat back into the ocean,

disappearing beneaths the depths…

After Rosalyn recovered, she found out that her friends had perished at

sea, but she was somehow miraculously rescued by two incredible sharks.

The story of these savior sharks was spread across Florida, touching

the hearts of many locals and tourists alike. Every Christmas, shark lovers

would gather around the harbor and protest against the hunting and killing

of sharks while celebrating the anniversary of the day these two sharks

saved Rosalyn’s life.

“This is a true story,” Captain Zou Bo emphasized, “It is

everybody’s responsibility to love and protect marine life that we have on

this wonderful planet. According to many new studies conducted by marine

biologists, more than 98% of sharks would never intentionally hurt an

innocent person and can coexist with people peacefully. An increasing

number of countries have now established environmental organizations that

are strongly opposed to the unnecessary poaching of marine life!”

After listening to Captain Zou Bo’s story, the crew of the Brotherhood

rapidly put together a sign that read “The Last Shark Feast” and set it

on top of the table that was made from shark bones. The seafarers now had a

new-found respect for the marvelous sea animals, and spread Captain Zou

Bo’s tale across the entire nautical world.