Chapter One

It was in its narrow slip in Los Angeles Harbor at San Pedro, California, that Marlon Perkins of "Wild Kingdom" caught his first glimpse of the boat named Geronimo.  This was the craft which was to take him out to sea in search of a whale.  He could not help thinking that it seemed to be a rather small boat for such a big job. 

Relatively small it might have been, but the Geronimo was particularly well-manned and well-equiped for such an extensive and potentially dangerous mission.  From bow to stern it measured only thirty-eight feet and its beam - that distance from side to side across the deck at its widest part - was twelve feet.  A sixteen-foot mast sticking sturdily upward from amidships supported the radio antenna, and a thick, smooth crossboard near the top served as a makeshift crow's-nest lookout perch.  Two quickly narrowing ladders made of cables and wood provided access to this lookout crossboard from the rail on either side of the boat.

The most immediately obvious difference in the boat, however, was an uncommonly long and rather peculiar bowsprit that projected far ahead of the prow.  Firmly anchored by cables to the mast, cabin and both port and starboard bow rails, it was sturdy board construction stretching twenty-six feet ahead of the boat.  At its end was an iron framework basket built to hold a man.  Very soon now, Marlin knew, he himself would be standing on that contraption, perhaps looking down at a whale only five or six feet directly beneath him.