May

7

Krakatoa, by Simon Winchester is a fascinating account of the social and scientific world in 1883 and the impact of the explosion of the volcano of Krakatoa. He is a geologist and explains the history of the idea of tectonic plate movements, which is standard knowledge now, but dismissed then as nonsense, like many new scientific theories.

One theory is that Krakatoa ushered in the global age that is now driving financial assets. The explosion sent shock waves through the air that traveled around the earth 7 times and registered on the many barometers in London! The tidal wave registered on tide meters 7,000 miles away. The particles created spectacular sunsets around the world for months and lowered temperatures. It was not Krakatoa that caused the many crop failures but another explosion that turned summer into winter.

The then recent telegraph and the new cables allowed the news to travel within days around the world leading to the realization of the importance of world events. A man named Reuter used pigeons to dispatch news from Europe to London to be the first to convey news of interest and financial importance. With that edge he was able to expand subscription to his services.

In the Heart of the Sea, The Tragedy of the Whale Ship Essex, by Nathaniel Philbrick, is a heartbreaking account of the attack by a sperm whale against the Essex, its sinking, and the devastating 87 days at sea in small whale boats and the suffering and struggle of the diminishing crew. As with many tragedies, though perhaps precipitated by some random event, a series of miscalculations, errors of judgment, both before and after led to creating a much worse situation.

In the case of the Essex, it was an older ship and the owners may have skimped on some repairs leaving it weakened structurally allowing the whale to stove its sides. The new young captain through bad sailing allowed a knockdown near the beginning of the voyage leaving them short of whaleboats. They were unprepared for a sinking.

After the sinking, rather than head for the Society Islands a few hundred miles away as the Captain first decided, he succumbed to the opinion of the mate and crew to go up wind, thousands of miles to South America. This example of poor leadership resulted in suffering and death. The horrific plight of the starving sailors on the small boats and who survived and who died and why in the social order gives much food for thought. It is notable that Captain Pollard eventually sunk a second ship by crashing it on a reef. Was it random? Bad luck? Or something else at work. The story reminds me of the feelings of a trader stuck in a bad trade or drawdown, starving for days and weeks and months on end but eventually making it back. Some even go on to live out their lives, but for some reason, the characters in this book seem to attract the plague of the fates. In this case, were correlation and causation related? That is an important question.

The Essex was the basis for Melville's, Moby Dick, which leaves off as the Essex horror continues. Interestingly, Melville was a commercial failure as a writer and had to work the docks during his life. As an aside, I have a fried here who taught us the hundreds of knots and lashing to lash a traditional sailing canoe who looks just like Quequaig with the tattoos and the top knot and is a seaman of the highest order and speaks of his death. He has tattoos on his back and head which mark where his life force will exit at his death.


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