Nantucket essays

Nantucket essays Nathaniel Philbricks In the Heart of the Sea, starts off by introducing the main characters from Nantucket Island. Quakers dominated the island both economically and culturally. This included Thomas Nickerson, a fourteen-year-old boy that feels pleased for the fact that he is going to sail in the Essex accompanied with his friends Ray, Coffin and Ramsdell. In this book, George Pollard play the role of the captain of the Essex while Owen Chase takes over as first mate. When they left the island, they crew was all excited to start hunting for oil, but what they didnt know was what there futures would bring them. During the successful months of whaling, a gigantic angry whale, which was in the process to be hunted, attacks the sail and sinks the ship. It becomes a nightmare to all the crew. All those days of sailing, and all that oil earned were lost. The thing that occupied the crews mind was surviving. When they were at sea in there life boats, they decided to plan how much food and water they would drink a day. Weeks had passed and men had died. They stopped at an island and found nothing. Therefore, they decided to keep sailing. Fights would break out since some of the surviving crewmember would steal each others food and water. This often led to cannibalism. The needs for water were greater than food. The crew had not really thought out that there life was more important than going out to whale hunt and risk there lives. On February 25, 1821, Chase, Nickerson, and Lawrence arrived to a port in Chile. The rest of the crew had died or got lost. ...