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In the Heart of the Sea

the Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex /
Nov 10, 2016zipread rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
The Heart of the Sea. By. Nathaniel Philbrick. In mid August 1819, a whaling ship, Essex, set sail for the whaling grounds on the other side of the planet in the vast Pacific Ocean. Inauspiciously enough, she is severely pummeled before she can even reach the west African coast to revictualize. After extensive repairs she resumes her voyage around Cape Horn and into the Pacific Ocean. Having successfully harpooned, killed and flensed a number of prey the strangest of things happens: their ship the Essex is attacked and rammed by a huge bull whale. Within moments the Essex begins to sink. The crew rush salvage what they can. Hardtack, casks of water, six Galapagos tortoises taken along as provender, a hand full of tools and some guns and powder. What follows is the horrendous story of a small party of men in three small boats adrift in the vastness of the ocean. Only seven of these men were to survive the predations of over three months on the open ocean with insufficient food, water, shelter, and, perhaps, in the end. This tale undoubtedly served as the basis for Nathaniel Hawrhorn's "Moby Dick". The story Philbrick tells is one of deprivation and suffering. He is graphic when describing the various manifestations of starvation, of dehydration, and of a slow death from salt poisoning. The tension is palpable; the disappointments are real. "Heart" is spellbinding. And then the guess: who will die first? Who will die next? Will anyone survive? And who will have to eat their shipmates to live? Just in passing, ironically perhaps, in 1945 another Essex, a US naval vessel was torpedoed and sunk in very little time near the Island of Tinian. Here many sailors lost their lives to the sea. Those that survived, however, suffered many privations as those suffered by those from the whaler.