Ishmael (Moby-Dick) morning Ishmael and Queequeg head for Nantucket. Ishmael signs up for a voyage on the whaler "Pequod", under Captain Ahab. Ahab is obsessed by the white whale, Moby Dick, who on a previous voyage has severed his leg. In his quest for revenge Ahab has lost all sense of responsibility, and when the whale sinks the ship, all crewmembers drown, with the exception of Ishmael: “And I only am escaped alone to tell thee” (Job) says the epigraph. Ishmael keeps himself afloat on a coffin until he is picked up by another whaling ship, the "Rachel". The name Ishmael is
Whaling in Japan due to obstruction from the local police. The New Zealander Peter James Bethune received a two-year suspended sentence after boarding the ship which collided with his boat the "Ady Gil", which subsequently sank. "The New York Times" reported the whaling town of Ayukawa, in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture, was badly damaged by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. After the Fukushima Nuclear Disaster in 2011, radioactive cesium was found in two minke whales caught off the coast of Hokkaido. Whaling in Japan Japanese whaling, in terms of active hunting of these large mammals, is estimated by the Japan Whaling Association to