In the Heart of the Sea - Nathaniel Philbrick  (2000)
385 days - Jonathan Franklin   (2015)

My local is called O'Sullivans. It's three long blocks from the Narrows where I live and is the first sign of civilization on a long uphill walk past suburban Brooklyn to the top of the ridge Bay Ridge is named for. The bar has been family owned for 82 years, purchased in 1934 by its namesake, a retired NYPD police sergeant. I guess you'd call it a cop bar - not like that cop bar in Windsor Terrace they just started admitting women to like 20 years ago. And not like other cop or even firefighter bars I've been in that can seem unwelcoming to outsiders. Although one asshole did put me in chokehold just for fun once because I said something about the death of Eric Garner in Staten Island at the hands of cops. Everyone had a laugh and I didn't make a big deal out of it. Most everyone is friendly or at least polite. 

The bartender, Eddie, is an avid music fan and he kind of tries to watch out for me. Like don't sit in the corner, even if nobody's there. Somebody might show up and wonder who the fuck this guy thinks he is sitting in our corner. There is also a scary looking bald dude with sleeve tats that go all the up his neck who Eddie has cautioned me to never sit next to. That doesn't bother me and I don't mind learning and adhering to the unwritten rules of the bar. I like Eddie and he plays great music. He likes me and my family and we always at least pop our heads in to say hi when we are walking by. Most times we come in and have one or two. Lucy gets her usual - a glass of water in a rocks glass with a straw and a slice of lemon. My wife gets a tequila gimlet and I have a whiskey. The owner is usually sitting at one end of the bar nursing a white wine and is always friendly and welcoming. It really is a family pub - a real local where the locals check in to see what's happening even if they're not drinking.  

One day I walk in and the only other guy in there is the scary bald dude I've never talked to. He's talking to Eddie about fishing. He loves to fish. The only fishing I know about is Missouri trout fishing. I even used to tie flies with my old man when I was a teenager. He's an ocean going fisherman with a boat - do all ex-cops have boats? - and he's talking about a book he's read. I read. He reads. So I figure I could talk to him. I ask him about the book and he doesn't so much talk TO me, more like AT me - the kind of person who would never think to ask you a question about yourself. But he tells me the famous story of the Essex whaleship that in 1821 got stove by a whale in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and sunk, leaving the 21 survivors alone in 3 whaleboats 3000 miles from South America. Until the sinking of the Titanic it was the most famous sea story there was. It became the inspiration for Moby Dick.  

I love adventure tales. I've read the Krakauer book about the doomed Everest expedition that took the lives of 8 climbers in 1996. I loved The Lost City of Z. I've read about Ernest Shakleton's 1915 journey to the South Pole. Their ship was crushed by pack ice and they survived for two years on the floating ice. Scientists just recently discovered his sunken ship 2 miles below the ice in perfect condition. And I had the book, 385 days, on my reading cart - a story about a fisherman who got swept out to sea and drifted for, you guessed it, 385 days in 2012. I picked up the Essex book and started 385 days at the same time. 

What a contrast in survival stories. The crew of the Essex knew how to sail and navigate and had salvaged sails from the doomed ship. Salvador Alvarenga not only had no sail, he had a useless outboard motor attached to the back of his boat he had no tools to take off to increase the seaworthiness of his boat. Though the crew of the Essex were whale hunters, they had no tackle and could not fish. Alvarenga was in the sea to fish. He was a fisherman. So he could fish. The men of the Essex had only the water they could take off the ship and carry with them in the whaleboats. In 2012, the ocean was filled with plastic and Alvarenga easily snatched up all kinds of water catching containers. When food ran out or someone died, the crew of the Essex ate them. When Alvarenga's mate died, he insists he did not eat him. He had raw fish, had discovered how to kill birds that would rest on his boat and there was turtle blood. It kept him alive. He drifted for 7000 miles from Mexico all the way to the other side of the Pacific. 385 days. The men of the Essex, fearing cannibals in the islands to the west, executed a journey against the wind of 105 days and sailed 4100 miles in the opposite direction. In 1821, in open whaleboats, that is quite an amazing sea story. They both are.  

Since the Essex was a Nantucket whaling ship at the height of Nantucket's whaling dominance, there is a lot of interesting history about Nantucket and Quakers and the old money of the Folgers, Macys and the Starbucks - all very familiar names today that were at the forefront of Nantucket's wealthy history. 

Women ran Nantucket. Men would be gone for years at a time and sometimes wouldn't come back at all. When they did it was 3-5 months at home and then back to sea. So the women ran the business of interactions with the mainland - the island supply chain that kept them in goods and services and the selling of the whale oil the men brought back. With a lot of idle time, it seems they had hobbies. They smoked a lot of opium, apparently. And in 1979 during excavation and demolition of a home from the mid-1800's, workers discovered a Victorian-era dildo in the chimney. It seems the women adapted quite well to not having the men around. Here's a poem islander Eliza Brock recorded in her journal around 1850 -

Then I'll haste to wed a sailor, and send him off to sea,

For a life of independence, is the pleasant life for me.

But every now and then I shall like to see his face,

For it always seems to me to beam with manly grace,

With his brow so nobly open, and his dark and kindly eye,

Oh my heart beats fondly towards him whenever he is nigh.

But when he says "Goodbye my love, I'm off across the sea,"

First I cry for his departure, then laugh because I'm free.