[REVISITING] Orca-pocalypse Now!

In which another surprising area of my expertise rises to the surface and tries to sink a boat. WRITTEN and ILLUSTRATED by PETER MOORE

When you read this post, I’ll be cruising through the waters off of Cape Cod, looking for whales.

Also in the waters off Cape Cod: Hurricane Ernesto.

So I wanted to post quickly, in case the Road2Elsewhere hits a dead end in the Atlantic. Those cetaceans can be feisty. Just ask Captain Ahab, or any number of pleasure-craft owners in Spain.

Wish me luck, or I’ll be swimming with the fishes. And maybe, Ariel.

Darling it's better

Down where it's wetter

Take it from me

Up on the shore they work all day

Out in the sun they sweat away

While we devotin'

Full time to floatin'

Under the sea

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YOU’VE PROBABLY BEEN READING about the orcas that have been bashing boat hulls off the coast of Spain.

Personally, I think those boat owners deserve it. So many stupid puns in their boat names!

I’ve been paying attention to these whale’s tales because it’s so much easier to read about menacing orcas than it is to contemplate, well, all the other mayhem in the world right now. It’s part of the reason I post here: I want all of us to have something—anything!—else to think about now!

My favorite part of orca coverage comes when the marine biologists confess that even they have no idea why the killer whales attack Spanish pleasure-craft.

They might as well ask George Costanza what he thinks.

If Costanza can save the whales, I can too. So I’m venturing my own theories as to why orcas have it in for Boaty McBoatface right now.

It’s time we consider my…

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They have a point, actually.

“Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began.

Consider all this; and then turn to the green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half-known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!”
― Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Are you a fake marine biologist? I’d love to hear your theories of the orcapocalypse.

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