BootsnAll Travel Community

I highly recommend this book for anyone with an interest in the Pacific, survival at sea, and particularly for folks who are interested in what life was like during the heyday of whaling in the early 1800's. These people went to sea for three years at a time, primarily out of ports in New England like Bedford and Nantucket (the "widow walks" we see on older New England Victorians was for the captain's wives to pace while watching for the return of the ship.)

This fine book was the basis for Melville's Moby Dick, and features a really large, pissed off, harpooned Sperm whale bull attacking and caving in the side of the good ship Essex 1000 miles off the coast of Peru in 1822. The story is largely about what happened to the crew, all of whom survived the initial sinking. Highly recommended.