Could it be that our lost little whale pair have finally had their sonar set to rights? And wouldn't that be nice.

Makes us hark back to 1914 when the brutal "golden era" of whaling finally ended and it was the whaling ships that were leaving instead of the whales. Incidentally, the very last whaling ship to sally forth from San Francisco Bay was none other than the "Gay Head" (insert your own joke here). But that's quite another story.

What those delta-wandering whales don't realize, though, is just how lucky they are. Relatively speaking. Back in the day -- or to be precise, the quarter-century between 1882 and 1908 -- San Francisco was the whaling capital of the world, putting even the New Englanders to shame. During these few years, more ships sailed through the Golden Gate in search of the Arctic bowhead whale than from anywhere else on earth.

After the jump: Herman Melville in a hoop skirt! Or not.