Whalemen also knew that while underwater the whale continued at the same speed and in the same direction as it had been traveling before the dive. “The whaleman’s rule of thumb was that, before diving, a whale blew once for each minute it would spend underwater. As it turned out, the lot fell to the man who had originally made the proposal, and after lots were cast again to see who should execute him, he was killed and eaten.” ― Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea The writer submerges us in the period and customs of this bloody trade, living no bone unturned, no secret unexamined, all tales ground and pounded into dust, the descriptions and examples presented are as unrelenting as the hunt this men executed on their prey, the whales on the other hand are described, in all their social beauty, and dissected in the commercial value and business practices of the period. “After seventeen days, one of the crew suggested that they cast lots. Morals and feeling eroded to the point where madness is the last refuge. “No matter how much the inhabitants might try to hide it, there was a savagery about this island, a bloodlust and pride that bound every mother, father, and child in a clannish commitment to the hunt.” ― Nathaniel Philbrick, In the Heart of the Sea This is a harrowing tale that is the opposite of Life of PI, this is about raw survival, a description of a primitive desperate reality of the physical needs of the body and social expectation battling it out in the most horrible of circumstances. Hope was all that stood between them and death

In the heart of the sea philbrick