Ishmael, a New Yorker prone to talk in detail about whaling, boats and nature of man, goes up to Nantucket, finds a pagan-harpooner friend, randomly chooses a whaling boat to spend three years on, sails the Atlantic, whereupon the captain appears, hammers a 16 dollar coin on the mainmast, and says that they are stuck out on the ocean till they kill this really, really mean white whale as retribution for it eating Captain Ahab's leg, which, the crew—apart from that straight-laced Starbuck—is totally down with this notion, so they all continue sailing on through the South Pacific killing whales left and right along the way, till they hit the Sea of Japan in the North Pacific, where they finally catch up to Moby Dick and try to kill him, but the whale ain't having none of that, so he kills Abab, capsizes the Pequod, and everyone dies but the loquacious narrator.