Noahs ark why its false

Supposed metal-braced walls are natural concentrations of limonite and magnetite in steeply inclined sedimentary layers in the limbs of a doubly plunging syncline.

Supposed fossilized gopherwood bark is crinkled metamorphosed peridotite. Fossiliferous limestone, interpreted as cross cutting the syncline, preclude the structure from being Noah's Ark because these supposed "Flood" deposits are younger than the "Ark.

Thirty-five years ago, Life magazine carried a story of an expedition sent to investigate the outline of a ship in a mud-flow near Dogubayazit in eastern Turkey Life, ; see p. An aerial photo in this story was captioned: "Noah's Ark?

One scientist in the group ventured that nothing in nature could produce such symmetry, although nothing man-made was discovered. But after two days of looking for a cause of the phenomenon, the site was temporarily abandoned for lack of evidence. Other searches for the Ark continued, however, and placed Noah's barge on Mount Ararat farther to the north, much closer to where various creationists placed the Ark.

With the search still underway twenty-five years later, another explorer reclaimed the mound near Dogubayazit as Noah's Ark, which according to him contained "trainloads" of gopherwood Wyatt, On the basis of this renewed interest in the area, representatives of the Turkish Ministry of Cultural Affairs and the High Commission on Ancient Monuments moved quickly to protect the site from exploitation, declaring the area a national park.

However, skeptics and those who believed that the Ark was on Mt. Ararat remained unconvinced the Dogubayazit phenomenon is the Ark. David Fasold, co-author of this paper, also began studies of the site in , making nine trips in the following years to look for evidence. Today, the area is a military forbidden zone and is off limits to all researchers, except for Fasold who officially remains the only non-Turk having access.

Placed directly on the project by the Rector of the Ataturk University at Erzurum, Fasold worked closely with project leader, Associate Professor Salih Bayraktutan, with on-site investigations. During his investigations, Fasold found the following bits of evidence to suggest that this structure could have been the Ark.

Also, the structure displays the same area as in the Ark 44, square feet. Much of what Fasold uncovered should be viewed as circumstantial. Other streamlined rock-shapes have been found in the area Guner, , but according to Bayraktutan, these shapes do not display the same morphological and internal features.

Fasold's ground-penetrating radar survey appeared to confirm the existence of an internal structure, featuring symmetry and regular distribution Fasold, Nevertheless, Bayraktutan found it difficult to explain why the site had so many geometric properties if it were just some randomly formed natural outcrop.

Even marine engineers had made studies and commented on it Windsor, , Furthermore: 4 Scattered some 24 km away are eleven, large, flat stones, each with a circular hole at one end and weighing between 4 and 10 tons Figure 3.

These could be interpreted as the anchor drogues referred to in the Qur'an: "In the name of Allah, it will cast anchor" Dawood, ; see Houd And, 5 Ancient place names relating to the Flood story abound and virtually surround the location Fasold, Fasold noted that such historians as Berossus, Nicholas of Damascus, and Josephus, recorded hearsay in their day, reported that pilgrims often visited the biblical Ark to recover pitch, highly prized for talismans.

Although Fasold dismissed tabloid discoveries of petrified rib timbers, coprolite, and exotic metal rivets, which were uncovered in clandestine excavations, as being the fruit of over-active imaginations, the prime evidence that an Ark with true artifacts really might exist came from an iron fitting recovered in situ in by a physicist, John Baumgardner, from Los Alamos, New Mexico.

On the basis of an interpretation by Baumgardner that chemical analyses demonstrated that the fitting is composed of man-made iron, Fasold surmised how all the iron fittings came to be arrayed in a boat-like pattern Fasold, Fasold was fully aware that there is no geological evidence for a flood of such magnitude as could float a ship of these dimensions so far and so high beyond the modern ocean, except through the power of myth.

Nevertheless, the reports of supposed man-made iron held out the hope for a legitimate discovery. After nine years of surveys and deploying every remote sensing device available, he waited for the Turks to excavate the structure. A reluctance on their part to do so caused him to become suspicious, and his enthusiasm for discovery began to wane. The worldwide ocean of the Genesis flood was swept by wind storms that would make modern tornadoes seem like a zephyr.

Schmich, p. There are perhaps five hundred active volcanoes in the world, and possibly three times that many extinct volcanoes. But nothing ever seen by man in the present era can compare with whatever the phenomena were which caused the formation of these tremendous structures.

Whitcomb, , p. For once we can agree that creationist rhetoric has not been exaggerated. A cataclysm that could accomplish the largest percentage of the geological activity in earth's history in one year—events that uniformitarians assign to billions of years—would be so overwhelming that we cannot begin to imagine what it would be like. Yet into the jaws of destruction sailed a rickety wooden boat—oversized, leaky and unsound, carrying a cargo whose safety and protection was all important!

It is utterly inconceivable that it could have survived even a few days of this maelstrom without being blasted to splinters—unless it was protected by the unceasing intervention of the deity. Curiously, when the talk turns to the fate of the ark, diluviologists suddenly paint a much rosier picture. Whitcomb, for example, has read that tsunamis so-called tidal waves in the open sea are of such low amplitude as to be hardly noticeable and would "thus have had very little effect on Noah's Ark" , p.

But why mention these and omit wind-driven waves, which have been known to exceed one hundred feet in an ordinary hurricane? The winds that would make tornadoes "seem like a zephyr," blowing over the unlimited, unobstructed fetch of the entire globe, would have generated waves many times higher; arkeologist Meyer suggests a height of several miles p. And what sorts of waves would be produced by the breakup of the "fountains of the great deep," the splitting of the continents, and the worldwide orogeny?

The shock waves from present-day submarine earthquakes have been known to damage or destroy vessels far from land Thrower, pp. Furthermore, there were at least two occasions when the ark was not in the open sea. As she sat on the Plains of Shinar, her first encounter with the deluge would most likely have been a mountainous tidal wave or flash flood or both, smashing her to pieces just as easily as it uprooted "entire forests.

Ararat and battered a few more days by the violently receding waters. There were other hazards as well. Volcanic ash and molten boulders filled the air, while at least in the early stages of the storm vegetation rafts and the debris of civilization shot through the water like torpedoes.

For most of the time, the ark was the only object projecting above the sea's surface, and, as such, it must have been subject to a continuous barrage of lightning, producing fires, splitting beams, and electrocuting soaked animals.

Then we have the puzzling currents of the flood, which flowed hither and yon, burying some places one week and uncovering them the next. For example, creationists tell us that the Llano Uplift of Texas remained a haven for men and dinosaurs while eight thousand feet of sediment was being deposited nearby John Morris, , pp.

Hence the ark should have also encountered swift-moving, riverlike currents and whirlpools, with frequent collisions against the outcrops that broke the surface. Noah neglected putting any kind of steering mechanism on the ship, leaving it completely at the mercy of the savage storm Segraves, p. In what must be a first, creationists Balsiger and Sellier actually conducted an experiment pp. They had a scale model of the ark tested in a hydraulics lab and concluded from this that it could have withstood waves of over two hundred feet before capsizing.

But even higher seas must have been commonplace in that fateful gale, quickly sending the boat to the bottom. It's a moot issue, however, since the entire test is vitiated by overlooking the ship's excessive size, which would have rendered it unsound in any weather. Arkeologists cannot have their cake and eat it; they can't have a cataclysm of the magnitude of the biblical flood and still expect the ark to survive.

Each year approximately two thousand ships succumb to the forces of the sea, in conditions that are like the horse latitudes compared to the deluge. These include structurally sound steel freighters larger than the ark, some of which have vanished so fast in a "mere" hurricane that people have even suggested a paranormal force behind their destruction cf. Kusche, pp. Who can forget the , ton supertanker, Amoco Cadiz, which ran aground off Brittany in March and was quickly broken in two by swells that were calm compared to those lashing Mt.

Yet the ark was adrift, without rudder or sail, for days Genesis in a storm that would make "hundreds of hydrogen bombs" seem insignificant! But mere survival is hardly the proper criterion of the voyage's success. The animals, many of them so sensitive that they have never yet been kept in zoos, had to make it through in good enough condition to reproduce and to spread over the earth.

Hirst tells us that "wild animals should be subjected to a minimum of jolting and rolling during transport. Rapid acceleration, sharp cornering, and sudden deceleration are to be avoided at all times" p. Broken legs and necks, bruises, and cuts are important considerations in even short hauls by truck, not to mention the panic most of the overcrowded creatures would experience.

Even fish in tanks are severely affected by sloshing and jolting Van den Sande. If indeed the ship avoided being reduced to toothpicks, anything on board larger than a grasshopper would have been pounded into a bloody, shapeless mass long before the last tidal wave crashed against the creaking hull. Assuming that the chaos outside could somehow be drastically reduced, what special problems did the cargo pose?

According to the time periods given in Genesis and , based on the Hebrew Lunar Year of days, the inhabitants of the ark remained there days. How did Noah and his family take care of their charges during this long stay? Our Bible-believing biologists have devised a clever mechanism for easing Noah's task: hibernation. LaHaye and Morris tell us that the ability to hibernate is an "almost universal tendency" among animals and that, faced with "adverse conditions" and "extreme stress" they would slip into this state and hence be easily manageable p.

Henry Morris agrees, attributing this behavior to "divinely ordered genetic mutations," and asserts that this is the best explanation available for these abilities today , p. This "solution" is apparently an ad hoc idea into which none of its advocates even bothered to delve.

If they had, they would have found that hibernation is far from "universal. These are all small creatures; larger animals, including bears, are too big for true hibernation Mount, p.

Most fish, birds, and invertebrates do not become dormant in any sense, and other forms of torpor, such as reptilian estivation, are physiologically dissimilar to winter sleep and could not occur in the same environment. Furthermore, animals respond to "extreme stress" with panic and flight—not hibernation, which is a response to lack of food or cold temperatures.

Crowded into the ark like sardines with every other species all about, tossed and slammed against their cages with the ear-splitting roar of the upheaval outside, quiet inactivity is the last thing one would expect to happen. Many animals are so nervous that they are difficult to keep in an ordinary zoo; if even true hibernators like bats are aroused by touching, what chance is there that any specimen would quietly curl up for a year-long nap?

Hibernation is not a simple siesta. Rather, "during the period prior to hibernation, an animal must make a considerable number of gradual physiological and metabolic adjustments" Mayer, p. These include an increase of fat deposition, gradual readjustment of body temperature, heart rate, and metabolism, preparation of the den and storage of food, and so on.

Frogs and salamanders frequently overwinter in large aggregates; other amphibians sleep only under forest litter or in a few inches of icy water; lungfishes construct a mud cocoon. Timing is also vital, for, if exposed to cold at the wrong time of year, a hibernator will increase its activity in order to keep warm. What opportunities did the migrating hoards have to prepare themselves and their cages for the long rest? Were the ark's spartan stalls provided with cozy dens and burrows? Newly arrived from near and far, the animals were stampeded, still exhausted from their march, into strange, frightening cells and, only a week later, were violently jolted onto their wild ride Genesis , Finally, hibernation is a risky affair, rather than the refreshing nap portrayed by creationists.

The animal loses about 40 percent of its body weight during the winter; prorated into the days on board the ark, each would have been reduced to little more than a skeleton by the time the door opened. Even bones and teeth deteriorate, and the young frequently starve Yalden and Morris, pp. In snakes, the mortality rate may be as high as 30 to 50 percent Shaw and Campbell, p. On page , W. Mayer concludes:. The hibernator apparently is balanced on a very narrow line between the maintenance of life at a level that makes recovery from hibernation possible and a reduction of metabolism to a level that will lead to death.

Evidence obtained from tissues indicates that the process of hibernation is a precarious method of survival at best and one from which many animals do not awaken. As a mechanism of species survival, hibernation seems effective; for the survival of the individual, however, it is an uncertain and dangerous process. Yet on the ark, there were only individuals, hibernating in extremely adverse conditions for more than double the time that any animal normally is dormant.

We must conclude that the animals on the ark did not experience any type of dormancy in any way resembling these phenomena in nature; the "divine mutations" produced a state closer to suspended animation, a sort of celestial cryonics Segraves, pp. This supernatural quiescence has a curious twist, however, for the Bible plainly informs us that Noah was to take food on the voyage for the animals Genesis Hibernators do awaken from time to time to eat, and apparently these supersleepers did so also.

If the Lord was going to perform such a substantial modification of natural physiology as this impossible hibernation involved, why not make the miracle complete and dispense with the storage space for the food and the inconvenience to the crew of the feedings?

This is especially pertinent when the magnitude of the task is examined. For the total number of creatures on the ark, if each one received but one feeding during the voyage, and if all eight of the crew worked sixteen hours per day at the chore, each animal would wind up with just Some would have their meal on the first day, while others waited until they were nearly starved.

The poor attendants would have to carry out their chores in the violently pitching vessel and in inky darkness since lanterns could easily drop and start a fire. They would have to find the correct food and somehow locate the right cage in the mind-numbing maze. When they found it, they would have to arouse an animal that could sleep through the raging chaos; the food could not be left in the troughs for it would spoil or spill.

Then it's back down the slippery corridor to the storage bins for the next meal—on a perfect schedule, without duplicated efforts or mistakes—all in less than a minute! Unfortunately, many animals are not physiologically capable of surviving on an occasional meal, however large, and a meal once a year—or once a week—would mean death.

Some birds eat continuously during daylight and suffer when taken to regions with short winter days National Research Council, , p. Rodents, cud chewers, and insectivores are others in the "continuous feeder" class Gersh, p. Thus it appears that the "hibernation model," cleverly concocted to relieve Noah of an unmanageable work load, is vitiated by the simple scriptural requirement of providing food for the voyage.

There are many other problems associated with the feeding. The first concerns the carnivores: where did Noah get the huge quantities of fresh meat required by these animals? The creationist response is that God miraculously altered them so that they could thrive on a vegetarian diet during the voyage. Although some aver that the eating of meat never occurred anywhere until after the flood, Whitcomb and Morris discuss at length the change from herbivorous to carnivorous physiology, which they date to the Fall of Adam pp.

Thus these animals were originally vegetarian, then became meat-eaters after the Fall, vegetarians again for the year of the flood, finally returning to their carnivorous ways afterwards. Three times the Lord magically changed the physiology and anatomy of a substantial proportion of the animal kingdom. And if this is true of carnivorous mammals, it must also be so for insect-eating birds, amphibians, reptiles, for the multitudes that live on fresh fish and other aquatic creatures, and for arthropods which eat other invertebrates.

Were the slender, sticky tongues of tamanduas, pangolins, and other anteaters, so difficult to feed in zoos, altered to eat hay? Were vampire bats and mosquitos able to substitute tomato juice for fresh blood? Did the whales adapt to kelp instead of krill? And what of our ever-troublesome parasites? Were tapeworms and leeches content to spend a year sucking on an old log? God was remodeling digestive systems right and left!

Even if everyone ate only plants, there were still enormous obstacles. Many animals have highly specialized diets: koalas eat only certain types of Eucalyptus leaves; the giant panda eats bamboo shoots; three-toed sloths so prefer Cecropia leaves that they are almost impossible to keep in captivity. Primates need fresh fruit; many birds develop cramps and spasms if they don't get sufficient calcium; desert rodents are poisoned by excessive protein; and the list goes on cf.

Wallach and Flieg; Fiennes. How did Noah know what foods to get, how much and where to get them? How were the stores kept from rotting during the lengthy voyage? Even hay rapidly becomes moldy and unusable.

Young insists that feeding troughs be cleaned daily and uneaten food removed to prevent decay p. Giraffes and moose must have their troughs high or they can't reach them, while animals with large antlers can't get their mouths into a basket placed against a wall.

Carnivores deprived of bones to chew develop peridontal disease Bush and Gray ; rodents, too, need to gnaw or their teeth will overgrow Orlans, p. The tearing beak of eagles, the seed-cracking beak of parrots, the bill strainer of flamingos also overgrow if unused National Research Council, , p. Many animals, from fish to snakes, penguins to bats, will only eat living food because they must see it move to seize it Fiennes; Gersh.

Even praying mantises eat only live food and will eat each other if nothing else is available. Did Noah know this? Where did Noah find room for all these provisions? Even if the animals ate only a few times during the voyage, these must have been hearty meals and a lot of feed was required.

Elephants consume three hundred pounds of hay per day, hippos eighty to one hundred pounds. A large walrus eats forty pounds of fish daily, a lion sixteen pounds of meat; what would be the equivalent in grain? Whales consume several tons of krill per day when feeding Lockley, pp. Neubuser says that in the Frankfurt Zoo each year "sixty tons of horse, cattle, and whale meat are required to satisfy the demands of the carnivores. The boxes of cereals and oil seed, each containing about a hundredweight, if put end to end, would stretch for a distance of over half a mile.

The annual consumption of fruit, vegetables, roots, and green clover would fill fifty freight trains; hay and straw, thirty-five goods wagons" p. Lest these burdens start to overwhelm us, we find Rehwinkel discussing a theory that Noah possessed a "mysterious oil" of supernutrative powers—one drop of which would sustain life p. In the creationist Land of Oz, why not?

Although water was the most abundant substance around, it was muddy, salty, and full of volcanic pollutants. Even the water falling from the skies would have been useless, since the tremendous level of volcanism would have turned it to poisonous acid rain.

For his animals, Noah needed large quantities of fresh, clean water, kept in troughs and inspected frequently. Where did this come from? How was it stored and distributed? Conditions being what they were, it must have splashed out of the troughs shortly after they were filled, mixed with food and waste to form a stinking, slippery swamp all over each deck, while the reserves were rapidly choked with algae to form an undrinkable swill.

The mention of waste brings attention to that problem. All authorities on animal care insist on the cleanliness of the stalls, urging the daily removal of waste and soiled bedding. Neubuser remarks that "the removal of zoo waste presents almost insuperable difficulties" p. Creationists Balsiger and Sellier suggest that the bottom deck was used to store slurry, which accumulated to tons during the voyage.

However, a single adult elephant could produce 40 tons during this time Coe , and there were many creatures even larger. Our average animal, the sheep, produces 0. Multiplying the number of vertebrates by 0. Of course, hibernation would greatly reduce this quantity, while the invertebrates and dinosaurs would add to it.

Whatever the total, it would have been an awesome amount on the overcrowded boat, a breeder of infinite numbers of pathogens, and a source of noxious, choking fumes. A comparison with Lamoureux's Guide to Ship Sanitation is instructive. Complex plumbing systems of pipes and pumps, air-gaps and back-flow valves, filters and chemical treatments are necessary to provide potable water and dispose of sewage. Waste is treated and dumped overboard, not discharged to the bilge as on the ark.

Such technology was clearly beyond Noah's ability and the maintenance capabilities of his tiny crew; yet, if ever it was needed on a voyage, this was it. Heinz Hediger of Zurich Zoo, introducing us to a host of additional headaches with which Noah would have to deal. Many animals would not survive long in barren stalls but would need to have elements of their natural environment present. Squirrels and sloths need trees to climb; the latter are almost helpless on the ground.

Armadillos, viscachas, and others require soil in which they can scrape and burrow; capybaras and tapirs must have pools of water for bathing; and otters require running water. The extremely delicate platypus would have to be maintained with a device consisting of a water tank, a nest, and tunnels with rubber gaskets to squeeze water out of the platypus's fur to prevent the nest getting wet and the animal developing pneumonia.

Ungulates in transport should be made to stand up hourly to revive circulation in their limbs. Elephants and hippos develop dermatitis unless they can bathe frequently cf.

Crandall; Hirst; Neubuser. Wading birds develop leg weakness and should be transported in special stockings; peacocks and long-tailed pheasants may need their tails splinted and wrapped in bandages. Woodpeckers' cages would need a special coating, and many other animals, from termites to rodents, would gnaw through a normal stall. Excessive moisture is "extremely deleterious" to most reptiles Kaufield , while low humidities would prove fatal to many amphibians.

Burrowing invertebrates, such as worms, crabs, and clams, will perish without proper substrate. Perhaps the greatest difficulties arise with marine organisms. Most of them are extremely sensitive to slight changes in temperature, salinity, pH value, and other factors, and their aquaria require constant monitoring. Many need large, round tanks to prevent them from knocking against the sides, and some tanks must have a polyurethane foam to guard against injury from rubbing.

Complex filtering systems—unavailable on the ark—are necessary to remove waste; most fish require a high degree of cleanliness. Hadal dwellers must be kept in special high-pressure tanks cf.

Backhaus; Hawkins. Of course, a system of active aeration is necessary or the fish will suffocate—yet a fragile jellyfish can be damaged by an oxygen bubbler.

Some sharks will sustain tissue damage from lying still as little as five minutes and may have to be stimulated by an attendant when in a captive environment Gruber and Keyes, p. Even humble planarian worms are likely to die if their water becomes "even slightly contaminated" Orlans, p. The National Research Council concludes: "Despite the best care and equipment, some marine species will not tolerate capture and transport" , p.

Ventilation would have been another major concern. The Bible tells us that Noah placed a window one cubit square at the top of the vessel Genesis Creationists, basing themselves on "eyewitnesses" who have seen the ark in modern times, enlarge this to a row of windows along a catwalk on top of the ship and postulate a "wind-deflecting system" to get the air below decks Schmich.

In any case, the window s had shutters, for Noah opened them to release the raven and dove. Considering the mountains of water constantly washing over the ship, they were probably closed most of the time to prevent swamping.

Open or shut, the arkeologists' enthusiasm is premature. Sainsbury and Sainsbury give a number of equations and tables for calculating the ventilation of barns p. This would be particularly acute in the densely packed, three-tiered ark: virtually no fresh air could reach the lower decks. The result would be a rising concentration of dust and microorganisms, condensation on bedding and floors, and resultant chilling, loss of appetite, and susceptibility to respiratory disease.

The lack of ventilation would produce particularly dire consequences with respect to the tons of waste accumulating in the no-man's-land of the bottom deck. Besides being a nursery for every conceivable pathogen, it would also unleash large quantities of such toxic gases as ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, and methane.

Hydrogen sulfide, for example, leads to appetite loss and hyperexcitability at concentrations as low as twenty parts per million—yet agitation of stored slurry, incessant on the ark, can elevate levels to ppm Sainsbury and Sainsbury, p. These gases also pose the potential for an explosion.

Methane, which composes roughly 55 percent of typical landfill gas, is highly explosive at concentrations of 5 to 15 percent oxygen Emcon Associates, p.

At this ratio, even a few hundred tons of waste would rapidly convert the ship into a floating bomb, needing only a flash of lightning, a glowing volcanic cinder, or the inadvertent lighting of a lantern to blast the vessel and its priceless cargo to the bottom of the sea.

In the depths of the ship, far from its tiny, shuttered windows, with thick cumulo-nimbus and dense layers of volcanic ash above, the darkness must have reminded many of the cavernicoles of the black tunnels they had recently vacated. Lanterns, as we have mentioned, posed too much of a fire hazard to be used—this was a danger in even ordinary sailing conditions Thrower, p. Could Noah's ark really have handled 8. It seems unlikely, but biblical scholars and creationists have a workaround, arguing that the number of animals needed on the ark could be reduced to "kinds" instead of species and then suggesting that God introduced the possibility of endless hereditary variety into the genetic material of passengers and animals on the ark.

Their estimates put Noah's cargo from around 2, to 50, animals. Marine life, of course, could stay in the ocean—two blue whales on deck would not only die but capsize any ship. Even if one could fit all the needed animals on the boat, and if those animals could survive the cramped cruise the study made no estimates regarding the weight of the food or freshwater needed to sustain the ark population , building a seaworthy vessel is another factor.

A boat sunk to its max in the water while still staying afloat could easily take on water from any breaching waves. And according to Euler-Bernoulli beam theory , the strength of a wooden beam decreases with its size, so because when things get bigger they break more easily, the beams that held this huge ark together might have been extremely fragile. Else the beams were short, which would also introduce structural weaknesses due to the higher number of seams between wood planks.

Helen Thompson writes about science and culture for Smithsonian. Noah's Ark by Edward Hicks, Even if two representatives all of Earth's animals could somehow fit on the ark, enough space would be needed for drinking water and food for an entire year. Furthermore, contrary to many depictions of the ark, God actually asked Noah to collect not one but seven pairs of "clean" animals and one pair of "unclean" animals Genesis — resulting, in some cases, in fourteen of many animals.

There simply would not be nearly enough space for all of them. There's also the problem of collecting all those animals in the first place, anthropology professor Ken Feder notes in his book "The Encyclopedia of Dubious Archaeology" Greenwood, Noah, his wife, and his three sons and their wives that's only eight people providing food and water to the animals would have been an impossible task.

What or who would the carnivores, living in close quarters with all those delicious herbivores, have eaten? Since the ark's purpose was merely to float and not necessarily go anywhere , it would have had no means of propulsion such as a sail or even steering. According to Morris, "As far as navigation was concerned, God Himself evidently steered the ship, keeping its occupants reasonably comfortable inside while the storms and waves raged outside.

Of course, this rather begs the question, because if God created the global flood and divinely steered the ark, then presumably He could have done any other miracle to assure the success of Noah's mission, from temporarily shrinking all the animals to the size of rats or even allowing them all to live for a year without food or water.

Once a supernatural miracle is invoked to explain one thing, it can be used to explain everything.