Captain Ahab

Given the recent goings-on here on South Caicos, I thought it suiting to begin reading Moby Dick. (Actually, I'm cheating a little by listening to the audiobook, but that's neither here nor there). The idea came after others started poking fun at me, saying I was obsessed with finding the whales. The book is about Captain Ahab's crazed search for the elusive White Whale (actually an albino Sperm Whale). He becomes completely consumed by the hunt and is left unable to focus on or take pleasure in anything else. While my recent obsession with whale watching certainly hasn't reached this degree, the parallel they've drawn to Ahab is might not be that far off base for many other things in my life.


We spent much of the day yesterday in search of the whales. But we were not lucky enough to find them. The season is coming to a close soon. Most of the whales should be gone by the middle of March, though some stragglers can supposedly still be seen well into April.

On one of the dives yesterday, I could hear them. The male humpbacks are known for deep their whale-songs. The sound can travel for miles and miles, but I kept hoping they'd just come swimming by. It's really hard to swim with them let alone dive with them. They move so quickly that you can't really plan that sort of thing. You just need to be lucky.

I went out to the very tip of the East Bay Spur (a coral formation that juts out into "the blue") hoping they'd come by.