Ambergris begins its long journey in darkness, beneath several hundred tons of seawater, in the warm and cavernous hindgut of a sperm whale. This much is known. If many aspects of its journey are not so clear, this is because the lives of sperm whales are still mostly shrouded in mystery—a collection of theories rather than facts. As they leave the ocean surface, glistening green–gray flukes disappearing beneath the chop, they simply leave our world behind and dive into another.
