Whale is an easy find.
I always go for the cornucopia, the centre chests on 48 servers as people tend to go for the outer ones.
I proceed through that loop-mountain overhand (the one with the ruins, fire after it) and I head to the village and take the chest that is there. If I have a team mate (or if there is an available mob nearby) I'll get that redstone opened double chest. I would then proceed down the beach to get the chest near the red mushrooms, then the one inside the cave in the skull face, then the one at the bottom of the tower nearby. Then I would usually head around, see if the chests below the mountain (the mountain with half a bridge) and loot those, people usually ignore them. I then climb on top of the vines, wait for night and watch teams, greedy players run in to get the restocked chests. Then I yell "THIS IS SPARTA", jump down, ninjaing them and kill them whilst they're in the chests.
It works, unless they say "No, it's just madness" and they shoot you off the vines before you jump. That actually just happened. :3