This is a non-fiction history book telling the true story of the whale-ship Essex, which was wrecked in the middle of the Pacific Ocean in 1819 after being rammed by an angry Sperm Whale, thousands of miles from land.

My three things learnt are:

1. The destruction of the Essex by a Sperm Whale and the subsequent struggle for survival of its crew is the basis for Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick. Herman Melville was also a whaler, though a couple of decades after the sinking of the Essex. While whaling he met the teenage son of Owen Chase, the first officer, and quizzed him about the event. He also later met Captain Pollard, the captain of the Essex who by this time was the night watchman on Nantucket.
2. In the early 19th century, Whale Oil was the first commercial oil available, and was used to in making candles and powering lamps. Later in the 19th century kerosene, and later petroleum ended whale oil’s importance, and the whaling industry declined.
3. In the early 19th century, not much was known about many of the islands of the Pacific, and the Essex crew were afraid of cannibalism, which was practiced by certain Pacific island inhabitants. In actual fact, many islands had already been explored by Captain Cook several decades before, but this information was not widely known and certainly hadn’t made it into Bowditch’s ‘Navigator’ which they relied on. A more up to date book would have saved many lives and their 3 months adrift at sea would have been less than 1 month!