Late afternoon of the third day
The First Galanos Attack
Two shovel-nosed sharks, galanos, appear. Santiago fights them with the knife lashed to an oar. He kills one by stabbing it in the brain and the other by driving the blade into its eye and severing its cartilage. The sharks take a quarter of the marlin's best meat. The old man is exhausted and his hands are badly cut. He apologizes to the fish for going out too far.