Sailor Ismael is in the port of New Bedford, Massachusetts, looking for a job on a whaling ship.

He stops at the inn of the "spout" and meets a black harpooner from the islands of the southern sea called Queequeg, whom he takes as his companion and servant.

Both are sworn friendship and prepare to go to the island of Nantucket, looking for work, on a boat that is about to set sail. In the port is the "Pequod", hiring crew for a trip dedicated to whaling.

Your captain is called Ahab. When Ishmael sees it, he feels he is possessed. Ahab has traveled the seas, for many years, hunting whales. On one occasion, in the Pacific, he had found a monstrous white whale that destroyed his ship and tore off a leg, chewed and devoured it; leaving him mutilated, with a stick leg, full of hatred, to take revenge on the whale, whom they call "Moy Dick". This is how the trip begins.

Through moments of bonanza, storms and hurricanes, the "Pequod" navigates the Atlantic, surrounds South America and Cape Horn, and enters the Pacific. They pass by shipwrecked ships, rival whaling ships and other boats that bring them news of Moby Dick.