Once when diving in the Maldives, the Beetle noticed the boat captain looking very interested in some strange rank smelly stuff floating on the surface of the ocean. “Whale vomit”, he said, “ambergris,” and proceeded to scoop it up in his arms, so after a while I helped him. Now I know why.

Recently, an Australian couple who picked up a 14.75 kg lump of ambergris from a quiet South Australian beach are going to get richer as ambergris is worth up to $20 a gram. Initially, ambergris is a soft, foul-smelling waste matter that floats on the ocean. It is expelled from the tummy of the giant sperm whale as a digestion aid, to get rid of things like the beaks of squid that they cannot digest. After 10 years, it's considered clean and it turns into a musky sweet perfume which is why it is worth a lot of money to perfume manufacturers.