Heading For The Deep

摘要

Sperm whales fascinated me before I even knew what they were. These are the whales we all drew as children, with large, square heads, spouts and smiling grins. Fifty years later, I've come to realise that the reality is much more extraordinary. Historically, the sperm whale occupied a mythic status: it is the only whale that could have swallowed Jonah, the prophet of the Bible, and it appears in the Koran as sacred to Allah. But as humans began to pursue it, the species assumed another role.