The whale ship "Essex" began it's two and a half year voyage from Nantucket in August 1819. Captain George Pollard and his crew of 21 intended to sail around the southern tip of South America to the Pacific ocean whaling grounds that lay on the Equator.
On November 20th, 1820, the "Essex" was 1300 miles west of the Galopagos islands. Her small whale boats were out hunting when trouble started. First Mate, Owen Chase, was returning to the "Essex" to repair his boat, which had been hit by a whale's fluke. Nearing the ship, he saw a large sperm whale swim toward the "Essex" and ram her! Chase wrote, "The ship brought up as suddenly and violently as if she had struck a rock, and trembled for a few seconds." The "Essex" began to settle bow first. Chase recalled the other whale boats and ordered men to the pumps while observing the whale that had rammed his ship. He wrote that the whale was thrashing in the water, "apparently in convulsions, on top of the water" and snapping it's jaws. The enraged whale then rammed the "Essex" a second time. Soon the ship was laying on it's side as her crew realized that they soon would have to abandon their ship for the open whale boats, with the nearest land over 1000 miles away.
Fortunately, the "Essex" remained afloat for a full day, which allowed the crew to store 600 pounds of bread, 65 gallons of water and vital navigational equipment in each of the three boats. They even managed to salvage sail and spars from the ship to rig make-shift sails for the boats. Afraid of savages residing at the nearest spot of land, the Marguesas Islands, 1000 miles to the southwest, they decided to sail south and pick up the winds blowing eastward to Chile. On November 22nd, they set sail south. After enduring storms, the blazing sun and leaks, the three boats made landfall on a small deserted island on December 20th. There they stayed for a week living off crabs, fish and seabirds and eggs. They were dubious of being rescued from the remote island so on December 27th they, except for three men who decided to stay, sailed again toward the South American coast. Bad weather soon separated the three boats and worse, the food began to run low.
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