Thar She Blows!

The classic American novel, Moby Dick, was written by Herman Melville after he read about the dramatic events of the Essex whaling ship which had been rammed by a sperm whale and sunk in 1821.

After the Essex sank, Captain George Pollard and his crew drifted at sea without food and water for three months and even resorted to cannibalism before they were rescued. Captain Pollard went on to command the Two Brothers which two years later struck a coral reef in shallow waters off Hawaii, but eventually gave up whaling and became a night watchman in Nantucket, Massachusetts.

Now the remains of the Two Brothers are thought to have been discovered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration about 600 miles north-west of Honolulu. Though the wooden frame of the ship has disintegrated in the warm waters, harpoons, hooks and cauldrons to turn blubber into oil have helped to identify the ship.

I love these maritime stories. We can send rockets and men to the moon, but finding things at the bottom of the oceans often seems much more daunting. But here, after much research and effort, a tangible link to an American maritime classic has been uncovered.

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