He is wounded and fish too, so there is a bloody trace behind him. Sharks come and he has to fight with them. When he reaches the shore only a skeleton remains. He puts bones to the garbage and goes for coffee as if nothing happened. The nature was stronger than Santiago, but he was a moral winners. "Man can be destroyed but never defeated."
It is an allegory of a human life and old cuban fisherman catches a huge fish after along patient fight. But sharks come eat it down to the bones...
The old man then returns with just a skeletons. When tourists laugh at him, he doesn’t complain. The reader sees this as sign of true heroism. The old man showed courrage in the fight and stoicism in defeat. The novel received a Pulizer prize and awarded the Nobel prize for literature. .