Moby Dick

 

On November 20, 1820, the Essex Whale sailboat sailed in open sea about a thousand miles West of the Galapagos Islands, in the middle of the so-called “Offshore Ground”, a portion of the Pacific Ocean still almost unviolated and very rich in headodogl I.

 

These animals were ambushed because their heads contained around 2,200 liters of ready-to-use oil, which, if burned in the lamps of those times, produced an intense light with a completely less dense smoke than the one emitted by The oil combustion of normal whales and even more than oil minerals.

 

At the beginning of the 19th century the whale oil industry general quarter was located in the small Nantucket Island, about 24 miles off the coast of New England, where a community of about seven thousand inhabitants, with a majority of religion here Cchera, he had been lucky with what was the “oil” of the time.

The fleet of the Nantuchettian whales was composed of more than 70 ships, among which the Essex, which, with its 26 meters long and 238 tons of weight, belonged to the middle category.

 

At his command there was the twenty-year-old captain George Pollard Jr., an indecisive and low-wrist man, who however could count on the ambitious first officer Owen Chase, just younger than him but already considered a “fishy”, one that is, he wanted to be a carr yesterday was in a hurry.

 

Sailing from the port of Nantucket in August of the previous year, Essex had sailed towards the South, traveling the entire Atlantic Ocean in the direction of Cape Horn, however, with the result of collecting a very thin boot in those waters already very battered ute from the competition.

 

From here the necessity, to get back from the expenses and allow a profit to those men who had already spent over a year in the open sea, to try everything for everything, dubbing Capo Horn until entering the Pacific.

 

It was an Ocean that then made all the sailors fear for its vastness and the dangers that characterized it (sudden and tremendous storms, dry, cannibals infested islands... ), but in return it guarantees plenty of predictions, especially in the less-beaten areas.

 

From here the Essex men’s decision to push themselves so far away from the coast, being rewarded that day by seeing a large pack of headwaters.

 

When two spears had already been thrown into their pursuit, sparing the first specimen, however, the men who stayed on board saw a huge male of about 26 meters and 80 tons of weight deliberately aiming at full speed or head full of scars against the their ship.

 

The crash was very violent and the impact happened under the floating line, near the thunderbolt; scarred on the ground, the sailors remained unbelievers, unable to prepare for what had happened.

 

If in fact a vessel could have caused damage in the accident with one of those beasts, it had never happened before that one of them deliberately attacked a ship.

 

After the first collision the huge cetaceus, passed under the ship, resurrected on the opposite side, moving around 600 meters away, but only to stop furiously clashing the water with its tail, as if it was upset by anger.

 

With terror in their eyes, the sailors saw him reclaiming speed until he hit the hive again, this time just below the anchor, pushing back their boat and making it tilted below the floating line.

 

In a few moments it was clear to everyone that Essex was irreparable from sinking!

 

While the head of the head, disturbed himself from that trench of wood and wire, moved away to not recover anymore, to those men only left to recover the nautical tools quickly and furious and as many supplies and barrels of water as possible, for then take part in the survived boat, in part of the other two spoons that were already in the water and had witnessed the whole scene helpless.

 

This is how it started for those maritime winds, redistributed on three small shells drifting in the vast ocean, a dramatic Odyssey that would last almost three months, passed between indescribable suffering caused by hunger, dehydration, diseases and a Children of pure madness, and characterized by episodes of cannibalism.

 

Only two of those boats, i.e. which were directed by Pollard and Owen, would have been fortunately spotted and rescued between 18 and 23 February 1821 by a cruise ship off the coast of Easter Island, only on board Five survivors in total, now reduced to skeletons in an animal state, their attempts were to disintegrate the bones of their devoured companions one after another.

 

From the third boat instead they lost their tracks forever, while the last three survivors were recovered a few weeks later on the isolite of Henderson coral, where they were disembarked on the previous December 21st refusing to leave again ire, and they managed to survive by feeding on crustaceans and sea birds and drinking the rain water.

 

From this true story Herman Melville would have been inspired to write his “Moby Dick” in 1851.