In a quieter era when a ship's progress at sea arrived only through the courtesy of the wind, sailors told stories of intriguing sounds coming from humpback whales. If conditions were curiously calm and a vessel through coincidence or pursuit found itself in the close company of humpbacks, crews could hear a mysteriously beautiful call coming from the ocean that seemed to softly shimmer through their ship's hull, like the faint and fading tone from a struck tuning fork.
