The Whaling Ship GOOD FORTUNE Confronts the Kraken, 1846

oil on canvas, 21"x 21"

$6,500

This painting is based on a true sea story:

On an early morning in 1846, deep in the uncharted waters of the South Pacific, sailors on the Whaling Ship "Good Fortune" heard strange eerie sounds coming from underneath the ship, a scraping on the bottom of the hull and high cries something similar to, but not quite like that of a whale. Emerging from the dark ocean depths, large tentacles suddenly thrashed about the ship, reaching up on the deck and around the masts.

Fortunately, the brave crew of "Yankee Whalermen" managed to fight off the "foul beastie's" grasp and the monster sank back down into the briny deep before the ship could be pulled beneath the waves.

The deepest part of the ocean is nearly seven-and-a-half miles down. Because of this, the oceans contain 99 percent of the living space on the planet. Even with all the technology that we have today -- satellites, buoys, underwater vehicles and ship tracks -- we have better maps of the surface of Mars and the moon than we do the bottom of the ocean. We know very, very little about most of the ocean. This is especially true for the middle and deeper parts far away from the coasts.

It makes one wonder what is truly out beyond the breakers, what lurks down there below the surface of the waves?