The Pearl

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Who do you call when you need to transport 160,000 pounds from one side of the world to the other? You call the Blue Marlin owed and operated by Dockwise Shipping of the Netherlands. And that's what Abe Thousauca did six months ago as he was about to embark of the hunt of a lifetime to capture and contain the first ever live Blue Whale.

Little did he suspect the even more glorius triumph that awaited his expedition when a 400 foot wide clam was discovered with a white pearl that measured 120 foot wide. The find was too good to pass up and he immediated took action to kill the 1200 year-old mollusk. Using the cranes that were originally brought to lift a huge whale on board, Abe had set about stringing 14,000 feet of rope to haul the Pearl up from the ocean's floor.

Now was his moment of glory. As his ship was pulling into it's port, he awaited the results of the auction he had announced four days ago. His white pearl would be quite a bit taller than a ten story building. Apraisers were estimating it could sell for as much as $600 Million, which would surely give Abe enough money to finance two or three dozen more blue whale expeditions with the most state-of-the-art equipment. By now his discovery had no doubt made it around the world with coverage from the mainstream media. During the past two days he'd observed a steady stream of low-flying planes and helicopters that were no doubt photographing his ship with the intent of distributing the pictures to increase his pearl's exposure to the general public.

The Blue Marlin was brought to a stop by half a dozen tugboats and the crew tied it in it's place. Abe was greeted by a squad of naval officers as he stepped onto dry land.

A decorated officer stepped forward to speak with Abe. "Mr. Thousauca, you're under arrest by order of the United States Navy for the crime of illegal poaching in international waters and attempting to selfishly profit from your acts by engaging in an unlawful auction. The United States government doesn't condone these types of abuses of nature."

Abe's heart sank. This wasn't the warm welcome he had expected. As he submitted to hand-cuffs he thought to himself, I'll beat this and work my way back up so that I can resume my search for the elusive Blue Whale.

Original photograph was taken by U.S. Navy Journalist 2nd Class Ryan C. McGinley in January 2006. The article describes the Sea Based X-Band Radar platform used to support the U.S. Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD). The image depicts a X-Band Radar Ship arriving in Pearl Harbor aboard Heavy lift vessel Blue Marlin. The image is alternatively available on Wikipedia.org.

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