In the heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick

In the Heart of the Sea
by Osamah Elham

The rollercoaster of human experiences are described in the book In the Heart of the Sea by Author Nathaniel Philbrick. Mr. Philbrick did a lot of research on a fateful event of the whaling ship the Essex that left Nantucket harbor to go on a whaling expedition in 1819. The book keeps the readers interest with detailed accounts of a horrific encounter with a huge sperm whale. It leaves the reader to wonder whether the whale sunk the ship in revenge for the brutal killing of its kind by the crew. It depicts how the unimaginable can happen when nature turns against man and leaves him fighting for his life. Survivors are left to try to find land in three small harpoon boats after the sea swallows their boat. It is a story about survival against the worst odds. Men are forced to do things that they would never dream of doing.


At first, the reader begins to think that the book is merely describing a typical day in the life of a crew that is going out to hunt whales as they have done for ages. The boat follows pods of whales deep into the South Pacific. The book uses a lot of nautical terms and describes what it is like to be out at sea for long periods of time on a crowded boat. When the crew hauls in the whales they have captured, they have to open them up and take out the blubber. A fire on deck to burn the oil from the blubber creates black, disgusting smell. The constant rocking of the boat makes it hard to work cutting up the blubber. Whaling seems like a dirty, smelly difficult job.


The crew captain is a young man, George Pollard. He has a young cousin, Owen Coffin, who is joining him on the trip. He feels tremendously guilty when he is unable to protect him as they struggle to survive. It comes down to every man for himself. At first the men are glad to find land on a small island, Henderson’s Island. Eventually though, they eat all they can eat on the island and some of the crew decide to go back out into the sea to find someone to rescue them. Only three remain on the island to an uncertain fate. The worst is yet to come as the men leave the island and decide to head to South America. Many died and desperation overtook the ones that were left.

Great book by the way...