Story of a beast of the sea

 The story that inspired Moby Dick 

     Whale hunting, although today we see it as something bad, reprehensible and harmful to the environment, at other times was undoubtedly one of the biggest businesses and with greater profits, but also with many risks.

During the 18th and 19th centuries it had its greatest boom, contextualizing thousands of stories of daredevil whalers who took to the sea against nature and hunted down the oceanic giants. This activity, in addition to being profitable, was a priority for several nations, even unleashing wars over whaling areas, but still, This era of whaling left us some strange stories, like the one we will see today, this being the story that gave rise to the work of Moby Dick, Thank you all for reading, without further ado, let's get started.

Mocha Dick, mysterious white whale

It was a huge and aggressive white cetacean, sighted off the Chilean coast initially in 1810, usually seen in the waters near Mocha Island, southwest of Chile. 

This was initially seen sometime before 1810 off Mocha Island, where it is said to have confronted whaling ships, provocando que estos se hundieran, esto sumado a su apariencia fantasmal lo hizo famoso entre los balleneros de Nantucket, Because of this many reckless captains tried to hunt him after rounding Cape Horn, This was sometimes too docile, sometimes it swam alongside the ships, but once attacked, it responded with ferocity and cunning, and was greatly feared by the harpooners, When it became agitated it made sounds and moved aggressively in the water, sometimes jumping and sticking its entire body out of the water, eventually sinking several boats.

After surviving more than 100 encounters and multiple skirmishes and combats with whalers, he was killed in 1838, after coming to the aid of a distraught female whose calves had been killed by whalers, He was cornered, harpooned and pierced until he fell after a battle against the whaling fleet. His body was measured to be approximately 24 meters in length and 100 bar were obtained, along with some ambergris. He had some harpoons embedded in his body.

  Beast Appearance

    Described as resembling a huge sperm whale white as wool, covered with barnacles, having a powerful tail fin, this being its best weapon when confronting ships, although its way of snorting was also striking, since unlike other whales it was shooting water from its not in a high, perpendicular and expanded volume, at a regular and somewhat regular rhythm, having distant intervals; producing a continuous roar, like steam coming out of the safety valve of a powerful steam engine.

This produced 100 barrels of oil, along with some ambergris, a substance used in the manufacture of perfumes and sometimes worth more per ounce than gold, measuring 24 meters long, much larger than any sperm whale known so far.

Mocha Dick was also immortalized in the book Moby Dick, the PDF of which will be in the library.

The mystery continues

But the legend of this sperm whale does not end here, more similar white whales were reported after this, a decade later for For example, a similar whale was seen in the Arctic, and it was said that Mocha Dick was still alive, so several similar whales were seen in the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific, the most notable one whose dental wear suggested that it was 100 or 200 years old.

Furthermore, Mocha Dick's behavior can be explained by the pressure that the sperm whales had at that time, since the pressure of hunting made them attack ships to defend themselves, narrowly saving themselves from extinction, perhaps this animal had the same disorder as said sperm whales, In short, this is a legendary creature, whether it is an unknown species or a simple albino specimen is of little relevance, since it became a legend, being immortalized in history and literature..

[Links of interest]

https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mocha_Dick

https://es.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caza_de_ballenas

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.rtve.es/noticias/20181018/mocha-dick-ballena-inspiro-moby-dick/1821600.shtml