We sailed northeast away from the Crozet Islands.
We ran into huge stretches of brit.
Brit is that tiny yellow stuff that right whales eat as their main food source.
For miles and miles all around us, this substance rolled and rippled.
It felt like we were sailing across endless fields of ripe golden wheat.
On our second day out, we spotted quite a few right whales.
They had nothing to fear from a sperm‑whaling ship like the Pequod.
They swam slowly through the brit with their jaws hanging wide open.
The brit stuck to the fine, fringed filters inside their mouths — those structures work almost like Venetian blinds.
This is how they trapped their food, letting plain water spill back out around their lips.
They moved much like farm workers mowing grass early in the morning.
Side‑by‑side, the mowers swing their scythes through long, damp marsh grass.
These giant beasts moved the same way.
They made an odd rustling, cutting noise as they went.
Behind them, long blue streaks opened up across that yellow‑tinted ocean.
(Whalers call one stretch of ocean the “Brazil Banks.” Unlike the shallow Newfoundland Banks, this spot has no shallow seafloor. It gets its name from those vast floating brit patches that look exactly like meadows. Right whales are often hunted here.)
That rustling sound as they cut through the brit was the only thing that reminded you of mowers.
From up on the ship’s masthead, especially when the whales stopped and floated still, their huge black bodies looked far more like lifeless rock piles.
Travellers in India’s big hunting plains sometimes pass elephants lying on the ground.
From far away, people mistake them for dark, bare mounds of earth and walk right past without realising what they are.
New‑comers seeing right whales for the very first time do the exact same thing.
Even once you figure out what you are looking at, their unbelievable size makes it hard to accept.
It’s difficult to believe these massive heavy bodies are alive in every part, just like a dog or a horse.
Truly, you cannot think about sea creatures the same way you think about land animals.
Some old naturalists claimed every land animal has some matching counterpart in the ocean.
Broadly speaking that idea might hold true.
But look closer for specific matches.
Where in the sea will you find anything with the gentle, clever nature of a dog?
Only the hateful shark comes even vaguely close in temperament.
Most people who live on land feel deep, unspoken unease toward ocean‑dwelling creatures.
The sea itself is a great unknown world.
Columbus crossed countless uncharted waters just to find that one small new continent.
Since ancient times, terrible disasters have fallen on thousands upon thousands of people who take to the sea.
You can think about it for just a moment and see the truth.
Human beings can brag all they want about their science and skill.
Those abilities will keep growing in the future.
Still, until the end of time, the sea will mock and destroy humanity.
It can smash even our grandest, strongest warships to pieces.
Yet because human generations keep seeing these events over and over, we have lost our natural sense of just how terrifying the ocean really is.
The very first boat from old stories floated on an ocean that once drowned an entire civilisation in Portuguese legend, leaving not a single widow behind.
That same ocean still rolls today.
That same ocean crushes shipwrecks from last year.
Foolish humans, Noah’s flood never fully went away.
Two‑thirds of our whole world is still covered by it.
Why is it an earth‑shaking miracle when dry ground swallows people, but nothing remarkable when the sea does it?
In Hebrew history, the earth split open and swallowed Korah and his followers forever. That filled people with supernatural terror.
Yet every single day, the living sea swallows ships and their whole crews in exactly the same fashion.
The sea is not just hostile to humans who do not belong there.
It is cruel even to its own children.
It is worse than the Persian king who murdered his own guests.
It shows no mercy to the life it creates itself.
A savage tigress in the jungle may roll over and crush her own cubs.
In the same way, the sea hurls the largest whales against sharp rocks.
They lie there broken next to splintered shipwrecks.
Nothing controls the ocean except its own wild will.
Panting and snorting like a warhorse that has thrown its rider, this untamed ocean rages across the whole globe.
Think about how deceptive the sea can be.
Its most feared predators glide underneath, mostly hidden from sight.
They lurk treacherously beneath beautiful bright‑blue water.
Think of the sinister beauty so many of its most brutal creatures possess.
Take the intricate, elegant shapes of many shark species.
Think too about how everything in the ocean preys on one another.
An endless war has raged among sea‑creatures since the world began.
Keep all of this in mind.
Now turn your eyes toward our soft, green, peaceful land.
Compare land and sea.
Do you not see a strange parallel inside your own human soul?
Just as this frightening ocean surrounds our green land, deep inside every person sits a little island of peace and joy — like Tahiti.
But that small safe island is surrounded by all the unseen horrors of our inner lives.
May God protect you.
Do not push your boat away from that island.
You will never find your way back.