Writings in the Sand

Fish and Lobster Tales

Everyone has heard of a “fish tale”. A fish tale is another way of saying “big lie”. The term refers to the expectation that a fisherman is likely to exaggerate when reporting the size of the fish he’s caught. But what about the size of the fish that caught the fisherman?

A couple of weeks ago, a local lobster fisherman had a whale of a fish tale to tell. While diving to the bottom of the cold Atlantic to check his lobster traps, he found himself suddenly immersed in darkness. He thought at first that he had been swallowed by a Great White Shark, but the absence of teeth slicing into him or chomping on his bones told him that could not be the case.
In fact, he had been swallowed by a feeding humpback whale. Luckily for him, he was able to reinsert his breathing apparatus and get oxygen until the whale decided to spit him out. Amazingly, he came through the experience without any serious injury.

The tale is remarkable for the fact that it is not that rare or unheard of. This lobster fisherman was not the first man to tell this kind of fish tale, nor was he the first since Jonah. I knew you were thinking of him. All my life, the biblical tale of Jonah and the whale has been called into question by skeptics and defended with alternative explanations by religious scholars, but it seems that there is no explanation required. If you are in the area of a big whale with its mouth open, you might get swallowed up in the great rush of water going into its mouth.

It makes me want to revisit Moby Dick. Maybe it wasn’t just a fish tale, after all.


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/a-lobsterman-found-himself-in-a-whale-e2-80-99...