Come sit by the fire and i'll tell ye a tale.

[Mark Kaiser]

Anyone with any good eerie sea tales? I have a few, but this one is less a ghost story and more of an actual recorded event I read a few years ago. A briney, barnacled little piece I call... "The Governor of the Sea", In the late 1700s, off the east coast, around Nantucket, I believe, a whaler and her crew were on their way home after being out more than a year at sea. Off the coast line they spotted a pod of whales, "Thar she blows, 2 points off larboard bow!" though the crew was weary, their haul was unusually low, and the captain seen this as stroke of fortune, "Lower and after 'em men!" he shouted. They managed a couple of whales, and on the way back to the ship, one of the men exclaimed "You lads feel that?", "What do you mean?", said another. "I don't know, something doesn't feel quite right.", "Come on, you superstitious ninny, Cap'n don't like to be kept a waitin' an port is in eyeshot." The crew almost finished cleaning and rail haulin the carcass, when a splash was heard and a shout came across deck, "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!", "Did you lot see that?!", curious, the captain came down to see what was wrong. "It was a shark, captain!", "The biggest I had ever seen!, a black monster as big as Neptunes boot, and teeth as big as bottles!", "It took a bite of me whale sir", the captain looked at the half moon shaped hole missing from the carcass, it was immense. "There captain!!", one of the crewman shouted, pointing to the sea. About fifty yards out he seen it, a huge dorsal fin heading inland. The quick thinking captain yelled "A full share, to the boat that brings me that fish!", The men hesitated, "Come now, do you want that beast swimming about our shores?!" the captain said. After 4 hours of men rowing like the devil, scores of harpoons thrown, two boats swamped and many injuries, the great white mammoth was dead and hauled aboard. Upon cutting it open the whalers found a horses head, a full dolphin and a half, and a badly decomposed human corpse dressed in rich clothing. Upon reaching port, the captain reported the incident and authorities were sent to investigate amid the huge town crowd that had gathered dockside to see the leviathan that hung shipboard. Apparently a day or so prior, the acting Governor went missing, he would go fishing on moonlit nights in his jackboat out in the bay anchored next to a rocky cliff. He didn't return the following morning, yet his boat was found anchored, but missing a chunk of gunwale. The people figured he had drowned, but the investigators determined he was eithered pulled out of the boat or was thrown out. Because of his heavy frock drawing water, he sloshed frantically to climb back aboard when the great fish rose up and ate him. The investigators measured the shark out on deck and determined it was 30 feet and some change, they figured the shark was following the migrating whales, to catch a sick or young one for a meal. It was also determined the Governor was swallowed whole.

[Naharaht]

That is quite a story. Mark.

[csadn]

"I know me a taxidermy man back home -- he gonna have a heart attack when sees what *I* brung him!"

https://books.google.com/books?id=ME...0ghost&f=false