In the Heart of the Sea - The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex

Like a moth to the porch light on a warm summer’s eve. I haven’t a clue why, but for some reason, I’m hopelessly drawn to tales of human suffering and misery. I believe this compelling attraction began some 12-13 years ago when a friend strongly suggested I read Into Thin Air by John Krakauer. This book held me hostage for months. I laid awake at night agonizing over the poor souls trapped on Everest and when finally able to sleep, their excruciating cries tormented my dreams. Years after reading Into Thin Air, I was still following the seasonal assaults on Everest with pronounced anxiety for the faceless climbers.

Similar tragic accounts followed; their unseen beacons acting as forcefully on me as retractor beams: Alexander Dolgun’s Story, Skeletons on the Zahara, The Perfect Storm, Ghost Soldiers, The Road, Tears in the Darkness, The Lost City of Z, just to name a few. And now it seems that if I don’t find these horror filled tomes, they find me!

Such was the case with In the Heart of the Sea - The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, by Nathaniel Philbrick. I simply asked the kind Barnes & Noble lady for a book recommendation and that’s what I got. She told me nothing else about the book other than the actual historical account of the Essex provided the inspiration for Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Sounds interesting, I remember thinking. Little did I know this book would eclipse all the others in probing the depths of human misery.

On our first trip to Hawaii several years ago, Robyn and I toured the whaling museum at Lahaina on the island of Maui. In the sensibility of current times, it is nearly impossible to comprehend the conditions on a 19th Century whale ship. As we strolled through the museum viewing the photos and reading the historical descriptions, my stomach began to churn. Talk about dirty jobs! From working on decks slickened with whale blood and guts, to sleeping in rat and lice infested bunks, to subsisting on hard tack and putrid water … No thank you to that type of life for me. I can’t even go on whale watching cruises without getting sick!

Such were the conditions on the Whaleship Essex before it sank in 1919 and it was the Ritz Carlton compared to the conditions that followed. Abandoning the wreck, the 20 men constituting the crew of the Essex boarded the 3 small whale boats the ship carried and put forth into the merciless sea.

As any good author would, Nathaniel Philbrick does a nice job of supplementing the historical count of the next 3 months by scientifically describing the psychological and physiological effects of dehydration and starvation on the human mind and body. Not a pretty picture. And when the little food the sailors were able to salvage from the Essex runs out, chilling decisions from deranged minds were made. Rather than providing the graphic details, let me just say that 5 of the 17 whalers that stayed in the boats did not starve to death and it wasn’t because they received manna from heaven. (Three opted to remain on an uninhabited island and survived by eating shore birds until rescued.)

I’m not sure what the moral of this story is for the modern reader. It’s clear to discern that the 8 who survived did so because of superior will, judgment, and luck. I suppose die hard survivalists might find some enlightenment from their examples. For me though, the message is the same as the one impressed upon me from all the other books of harrowing ordeals I’ve digested: That my troubles are small compared to what they could be. It’s good to be reminded of this in the face of life’s little set backs. It’s better to hope than despair. And it’s better to be a moth than a cocoon.