Keith Thomson - Gus Openshaws Whale Killing Journal

The other day, a few leagues shy of hitting the equator, I was dozing at the controls of the cabin cruiser Id gotten in Texas. Id been sitting there like a statue for three straight days. Suddenly I looked up and realized I was about to broadside a 180-foot superyacht.
I grabbed the wheel and spun for all I was worth. Unfortunately, my damn body keeps forgetting that, thanks to the blubbery bastard, I got no right arm no more. So I wasnt worth much. It was enough though to swerve just in time to miss burrowing through the superyachts stern.
I got to thinking that it was odd that the yacht hadnt so much as honked at me. No one seemed to be aboard. It was doubtful everyone on a boat that bigd be below deck at one time. None of her lifeboats had been lowered. There was a copter still on the helipad. No swimmers were in the water around her. It seemed she was empty and adrift.
Curious as much as anything, I flung a line from the cabin cruiser up to her stern and climbed aboard. My panting from the two-story climb (forgot again that Ive only got one damn arm) was the only sound on the whole craft.
I nosed around. Most of the staterooms had peoples clothes and stuff in them. Nice clothes and nice stuff. Dinner for a dozen or sothree-day-old steak and flat-as-my-fourth-grade- girlfriend champagnewas sitting untouched on the dining table on the foredeck. A bunch of clothes were splayed out on the quarterdeck. Weird as crap, huh?
Heres what I think happened: Theres an old maritime tradition that when you cross the equator on a new brig, everyonepassengers, crew, chef, chihuahuas, whoeverjumps into the sea. My guess was that this champagned-up bunch mustve stripped down on the quarterdeck and hopped over the rail without realizing they had no way to re-board. There were no ladders. These sleek superyachts oftentimes dont have them (itd make them less sleek, I suppose), and the hulls are too sheer to climb up unless youve got suction cups tied up and down your limbs. More than likely, everybody drowned. Poor bastards, I thought. Truth is, though, I always feel a bit better on the few occasions people are stupider or have worse luck than me.
Theres another old maritime tradition. It goes something like, Lost at sea, belongs to me. It basically means if youre enough of an idiot to lose your brig, you dont deserve her, and whoevers the finder is the rightful keeper. I doubt that itd stand up in court. And if it gets even within a whiff of a court, Ill probably take the rap for the missing passengers and crew. But Ive got bigger fish to kill. With that in mind I cut loose the SS Piece of Crap (my cabin cruiser), which at that point was only afloat cause the termites were holding hands, and took the helm of my new superyacht. Unlike the cabin cruiser, shell be able to keep pace with the bastard (sperm whales can do 30 miles an hour). Then turn him into cold cuts.
I anchored her off St. Kitts. I motored ashore in a lifeboat and pawned a bunch of Rolexes and stuff like that Id found aboard the superyacht. Netted $44,500 in cash.
I then went to a seamens bar and tried to hire some crew. Found a couple older guys with harpoon experience. Best I could get otherwise was a couple drug addicts who might wellhave waited around the rest of their lives without getting another berth. When you go into a fish-stinking seamens bar on a small island and offer cash for a whaling job of uncertain duration on a boat you wont name, the best and the brightest sailors dont usually line up with their rsums.