“In such a silent flight, the sperm whale could not be outdistanced.  More than any other marine mammal, it is a master of the sea.  Using its muscle-bound tail, it can power its way thousands of feet below, its paddle-shaped flippers tucked into its flanks as neatly as an aeroplane’s undercarriage.  And once below, it can stay down for up to two hours.  To achieve this feat, a whale must spend much of its time breathing at the surface – its ‘spoutings out’. as the sailors called them – taking some sixty to seventy breaths in ten or eleven minutes.”

“…the Sperm Whale only breathes about one seventh or Sunday of his time” – The Fountain, Moby Dick