*Checked on 21 October 2026 against Update 6.0 (build 0.10.0.653173) of The Last Caretaker. Channel37 posted the notes for that build on 19 October 2026 [S3].

Short answer. Bring a fully grown human, not a seed, to Platform Omega, go down the shaft by Tower 4 and put the human in the control socket [S5]. Then moor your boat to the whale and charge it. Beerman says "you really only need about 30" [12:28] [S6], even though DasKippa wrote on 27 June 2026 that the port shows a maximum of "100,000Kwh" [S12]. On 30 June 2026 BaneTheChipmunk wrote that the whales "give you 10,000 L of oil" [S13].

Starting the quest

Update 5.0 "Added the Whale questline, including a new whale encounter, related objectives, rewards, lore entries, and a dedicated summoning location." [S1] Channel37 calls it Project Jonah [S2].

  1. Grow a human. Neoseeker: "you'll first need to have a human, not a seed, but a full-grown human" [S5]. The human stays in the socket. Beerman: "you will never see" it again [1:16] [S6]. Neoseeker suggests "using a human that's a duplicate to one you've already sent to space or one that isn't that great" [S5].
  2. Power Platform Omega. Three videos power the building before the door opens, none dated. J-Dub: "here, place your electric." [0:58] [S8] THEGAMINGTECH: "We've got power to that door." [7:19] [S7] HeRo built a medium battery and a wind turbine [0:57] [S9]. None of them says how much power is the minimum.
  3. Go down by Tower 4. Neoseeker: "head to the side with Tower 4", take the ladder to the lower tunnels, place the pod in the slot and "hit the lever in front of the hangar window" [S5].
  4. Carry the pod or throw it. Neoseeker says to "take the human pod with you" down the ladder [S5]. Lord Skarra wrote on 10 July 2026: "Throw the pod down the ladder don't even carry it. the Pod can't be damaged anyway." [S10] THEGAMINGTECH carried the human to the tunnel entrance and dropped it there: "Luckily, they don't" take fall damage [8:25] [S7].
  5. What you hear. In THEGAMINGTECH's video the chamber says "The system is waiting for a living human" [7:35] and "the socket is biological." [8:52] When it works: "Project Jonah is active." [9:41] [S7]

Charging and using the whale

Moor and connect. On 27 June 2026 BaneTheChipmunk wrote that the port "tells you exactly how much electricity input it requires" and that you have to moor your boat to the whale [S12]. In the same thread DasKippa wrote that the port shows "max pwr, (100,000Kwh)" [S12]. Beerman says to "aim for the armpit" on the right side, by the stairs [11:25] [S6].

You don't need to fill it. Players report stopping well below the port maximum:

SaysWho
"you only need to give about 30KW for a single dive which yields about 9000L in my experience"mookie, 26 June 2026 [S11]
"you really only need about 30."Beerman [12:28] [S6]
"You only need to do 25 to 30 is all you" needJ-Dub [6:11] [S8]
"each dive eats like 30-40k of that charge"DasKippa, 27 June 2026 [S12]
Two dives at 20 kWh came back empty ("So that's twice have got no oil."), but the video wondered whether the connected tanks or cable bugged it ("I wonder if it bugged out because it was connected to these."); a later test at 30 kWh led to "putting in 30 kwatt hours is the way to go"THEGAMINGTECH after Update 5.5 [6:40] [6:05] [15:12] [S14]
"I filled it just under half full of electricity and it came back with almost a full tank of oil."ColdThief, Neoseeker comment, 27 June 2026 [S5]

The units are loose. On 26 June 2026 Marvin wrote "100MW power", mookie wrote "30KW" and emgotcha77 wrote "30kWh" [S11]. DasKippa wrote "100,000Kwh" [S12]. If a dive comes back empty, give it more charge.

How much oil. Before Update 5.5, DasKippa wrote on 27 June 2026 that the whale "only fills up his internal tank (10k) even with drums attached" [S12]. BaneTheChipmunk wrote on 30 June 2026: "The whales are located centrally and give you 10,000 L of oil" [S13]. Some got less. On 26 June 2026 Marvin wrote that the whale "only got 8,868L from that with a 100% charge (26% left)" and asked "was I losing that oil while chasing it around in the boat waiting for it to stop as it spouted it out the top?" [S11] After Update 5.5, on 3 September 2026, DrSNAFU complained of "all that headache for only for 6k oil" and gave no charge level [S18].

Dives per charge. On 29 June 2026, before Update 5.5, DasKippa wrote "each charge will give you 2 maybe 3 dives 20-30k of oil in 5-10 minutes" [S13]. After Update 5.5, a battery comparison video says 60 kilowatts of storage lets you "charge a whale" twice for two dives in one visit [9:02] [S15].

Before it dives.

  • Unhook the boat. Beerman: "need to disconnect yourself. It will" drag the boat down [13:55] [S6].
  • Put a hose on the oil outlet. J-Dub: otherwise the oil "will spray all over the place and you'll" lose some [6:40] [S8].
  • Take the power cable off when you leave, Beerman says, so "it doesn't just auto dive." next time you hook up [16:00] [S6].

When it comes back. Beerman: it takes "roughly about 1 or 2" minutes to come up [14:21] [S6]. THEGAMINGTECH says it usually resurfaces off the bow of the ship [4:26] [S16].

Between dives. On 26 June 2026 Iamkirok wrote: "between dives it goes in a circle in the same spot..until you turn it off" [S11]. On 27 June 2026 DasKippa wrote that the whale "continually swims in circles eating more charge if you don't turn him off again after each dive" [S12]. After Update 5.5, THEGAMINGTECH said that after a full charge "he'd continuously swim around until you turned them off" [15:30] [S14], and Trustee Nonebar said "the whale keeps moving" [0:30] [S17].

No switch? mookie wrote on 26 June 2026: "I had to save and restart for it to render then I could get the whale to dive." [S11]

Building on the whale (Update 5.5)

On 27 June 2026, before Update 5.5, DasKippa wrote that "after last patch building on em is disabled" [S12]. After Update 5.5, THEGAMINGTECH said "now you can build" "on the deck of the whale." [0:44] [S14] Trustee Nonebar said the deck looks like "they've made it a little bigger to me" [1:14] [S17]. THEGAMINGTECH put six oil tanks and a large battery up there [1:57] [S14], and says the cable is "now 20 m as opposed to the" 10 m before [5:33] [S14].

There is a limit. Trustee Nonebar said the idea was that the tanks "would fill all these up and then hold its own oil, but it will not" [1:28] [S17], and says a full charge gave "it will only give you five barrels regardless of what you put up here" [1:33] [S17].

Channel37's Update 5.5 notes list only "Improved whale audio." for whales [S21].

The other two whales

On 26 June 2026 Little Red One wrote: "I have had it spawn at 2 other locations. So at the moment I know of 3 locations." [S11] The same day emgotcha77 read the thread differently, saying the whale "seems to have a few spawn locations" [S11]. J-Dub's video shows three separate whales and gives distances: one about 1.2 km from Exodus, heading north-northwest [3:43] [S8], and one about 2.1 km from Lazarus, "If you head almost straight west" [4:39] [S8]. On 26 July 2026 Squid put one "about 2 kl west of Lazarus" [S19]. J-Dub says that once Project Jonah is done you can do the other two in any order [9:21] [S8].

Missing or broken whales

Update 6.0 fix. "Fixed whales not spawning after completing their quest." [S3] The same line was already in the Update 6.0 public beta notes of 9 October 2026 [S4].

What players reported before Update 6.0.

  • Brothers wrote on 2 September 2026: "so fully charged all three whales, sent them off to harvest and theyre gone." [S18] TurboRookie wrote the same day: "same here, sent 2 whales off and they never came back." and added that the whales "dive waaay faster now" [S18]
  • Techno File, 25 July 2026: a whale went under Platform Omega and stayed stuck after reloading: "Only a small portion of it is below the Platform now, but it's still stuck." [S19]
  • Hairy eyeball suggested on 2 September 2026: "try going back into the omega shark pen and resetting the switch and human?" [S18]

During the Update 6.0 public beta, on 17 October 2026, Leviathion posted "Well I would say that the whales broken!" with only a video link [S18]. In the Steam threads read for this page, no post since the Update 6.0 release says whether whales that never came back have returned.

Docking. On release day, 19 October 2026, arokh wrote "Its become IMPOSSIBLE to dock with the whale now" [S20]; that thread is about boats circling after the update, covered on the Update 6 known issues page. Trustee Nonebar recommends against taking oil out in bad weather [1:03] [S17]. The same video reports the whale ramming the boat into the shark tanks "for whatever reason" [3:54] [S17].

What to do with the oil is on the fuel and gas page.

Sources and version

Checked on 2026-10-21 against Update 6.0 (build 0.10.0.653173)