Chapter 5 Summary

By November 1820, the ship was over a thousand miles west of the Galapagos, traveling along the equator. Nantucket whalemen were familiar with parts of the Pacific. They had been traveling along the coast of South America for over three decades and they also knew the area around Australia and New Zealand, as some Nantucketers captained English whalers who hunted in that area. But the area lying between the island of Timor and the west coast of South America was still largely unknown to them. The Essex was on the edge of the unknown filled with unimaginable dangers.

The whales were proving elusive to the crew, but they finally approached a whale on November 16. Chase and his whaleboat waited for the whale to surface but when it did it was directly under the boat, throwing Chase and the crew into the water, damaging another...