The whale tale that went global

And why I’m sure it’s true

Michael Packard, seated in a rendition of you know where, with Josiah Mayo on the Jimmy Kimmel show. This is just a screenshot, to see the whole interview go here: https://abc.com/shows/jimmy-kimmel-live/video/vdka23696894

I’ll stake my journalistic reputation on the fact that a Cape Cod diver and lobsterman named Michael Packard did indeed get swallowed by a humpback whale.

What’s almost as amazing is how deeply the story has been swallowed into the collective consciousness, and I don’t mean Jimmy Kimmel. I submit the following proof:

I was talking on the phone with Wolan Riviere, a remarkable man who lives in a village called Matenwa in Haiti. Matenwa is on the island of La Gonav off the main island, far from the violence and mayhem that has gripped Port au Prince. La Gonav is about the size of Martha’s Vineyard, with scattered villages. Matenwa has no electricity except a few solar panels and batteries, no running water, no town hall, no police station, no post office or formal government, no paved roads. It is high in the mountains, a rugged truck ride from the coast. Even Haitians think this is one remote place, which means it is one of the most remote places in the hemisphere.

Wolan is patriarch of the family of our two Haitian godchildren. With his blessing we brought them to Cape Cod eight years ago – another amazing story for another time. We stay in touch as best we can, though political violence and COVID have kept us away from Haiti for several years. When Wolan can get a flip cell phone charged, and the tower on the main island is microwaving, we try to talk.

He was glad to hear the girls are doing very well, straight A’s as juniors in high school (even more remarkable considering they didn’t speak English eight years ago), most important loving, respectful, caring people. But he had something else on his mind:

“Seth, is it true?” he asked in Creole.

“What’s that, Wolan?”

“That a man got swallowed by a whale?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know him?”

“I know his family a bit, and I know the family of the man working with him on the boat pretty well. Believe it or not you met the brother of the man who saw it, he’s been to Matenwa.”

“Is the man’s name Jonah?”

“No, but maybe that will be his new name now.”

I meant that as a joke but Wolan wasn’t laughing. “Yes, I think so,” he said, his voice breaking up with the connection, “I think so.”

I can only imagine how this news reached him. There are radios stations that broadcast from Port au Prince, sometimes audible; that probably explains the logistics. And the ancient Biblical resonance, archetype emerging into present tense, makes anyone stop, marvel, and repeat; next thing you know someone is going to see a burning bush, part the Red Sea.

Which of course makes people skeptical. Here’s what I can say about that:

The reporter who broke the story, Doug Fraser from the Cape Cod Times, is experienced, savvy, understands the fisheries, and also has great sources in the scientific community. Five million-plus hits on the story later, he has no qualms.

The man who was swallowed, one of the last remaining scuba divers to hunt for lobster (which says something about his stamina and attitude), is known and respected on the water. Michael Packard has plenty of stories he could share that he keeps close to the vest – true stories. Had this one not been witnessed, and required hospitalization, it’s possible he wouldn’t even have mentioned it.

Then there’s the crucial question at any trial, the credibility of the key witness, in this case the man working on the deck of Packard’s small boat.

Josiah Mayo was born and raised here. His father Stormy, a founder of the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies, just so happen to be one of the world’s foremost experts on the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale. Josiah’s grandfather was among that generation’s best fishermen out of Provincetown; it was his tactics and experience that Stormy first modified when he was searching for a way not to kill whales, but disentangle them. Josiah’s brother Nathaniel, working with Vineyard Wind on what will likely be the nation’s first big offshore wind farm, is a former staffer for our state Senator – a decade ago he journeyed to Matenwa, teaching our girls some of their first English words; “peanut butter!”

So take it from here, this happened. Otherwise, I never would have said so to Wolan.

NEXT: NOW LET’S CONSIDER THE OTHER ANIMAL THAT MIGHT PUT A JAW AROUND A SCUBA DIVER.

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