In the Heart of the Sea

fish, could dine undisturbed. Except for a few barnacles, the bones were clean when they emerged from the harbor six months later.
    Today the bones reside in a shed designed for the storage of Nantucket Historical Association artifacts. In the center of a room lined with curios such as an antique sleigh and the first sewing machine to come to Nantucket are the grayish-white pieces of the sperm-whale skeleton: the wishbone of the jaw, the disks of the backbone, the bulky ribs and the fingerlike bones from the fins. The bone that is by far the largest, the cranium—over a ton in weight—sits outside on its own boat trailer.
    The bones are sopping with oil. A sperm-whale skeleton installed at Harvard University a century ago still oozes grease. Morcom, whose job description as properties manager has grown to include whales, is bathing the Nantucket bones in ammonium hydroxide and hydrogen peroxide, a mixture that extracts oil. The Nantucket Historical Association has already completed plans to build a new museum with the sperm-whale skeleton as its centerpiece.
     
    THE island has changed greatly in recent decades. What was a generation or so ago a decrepit fishing village with a famous past and a few tourists in July and August has become a thriving summer resort. After a century of neglect, downtown Nantucket has been restored. Instead of sail lofts, grocers, and barbershops, however, the buildings now house art galleries, designer clothing boutiques, and T-shirt shops, all of which would have appalled the good gray Quakers of the whaling era. Spurning the cobblestoned elegance of Main Street, Nantucket’s latest crop of millionaires build their “trophy houses” by the beach. People still gaze from the tower of the Congregational church, but instead of scanning the horizon for oil-laden whaleships, the tourists—who have paid two dollars to sweat their way up the ninety-four steps to the belfry—watch high-speed ferries bringing cargoes of day-trippers from Cape Cod.
    At the height of its influence more than 150 years ago, Nantucket had led the new nation toward its destiny as a world power. “Let America add Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon Canada,” Melville wrote in Moby-Dick, “let the English overswarm all India, and lay out their blazing banner from the sun; two thirds of this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer’s.” But if the island’s inhabitants once ventured to the far corners of the world, today it seems as if the world has made its way to Nantucket. It is not whaling, of course, that brings the tourists to the island, but the romantic glorification of whaling—the same kind of myths that historically important places all across America have learned to shine and polish to their economic advantage. Yet, despite the circus (some have called it a theme park) that is modern Nantucket, the story of the Essex is too troubling, too complex to fit comfortably into a chamber of commerce brochure.
    Unlike, say, Sir Ernest Shackleton and his men, who put themselves in harm’s way then had the luck to live out an Edwardian fantasy of male camaraderie and heroism, Captain Pollard and his crew were simply attempting to make a living when disaster struck in the form of an eighty-five-foot whale. After that, they did the best they could. Mistakes were inevitably made. While Captain Pollard’s instincts were sound, he did not have the strength of character to impose his will on his two younger officers. Instead of sailing to Tahiti and safety, they set out on an impossible voyage, wandering the watery desert of the Pacific until most of them were dead. Like the Donner Party, the men of the Essex could have avoided disaster, but this does not diminish the extent of the men’s sufferings, or their bravery and extraordinary discipline.
    Some have praised the officers of the Essex for their navigational skills, but it was their seamanship, their ability to keep their little boats upright and sailing for three months in the open ocean, that is even more astonishing. Captain Bligh and his men sailed almost as far, but they had the coast of Australia and a string of islands to follow, along with favorable winds. Bligh’s voyage lasted forty-eight days; the Essex boats were out for almost twice as long.
    From the beginning the Nantucketers in the crew took measures to provide one another with the greatest possible support without blatantly compromising the safety of the others. Although rations appear to