#the only time he expressed an interest in women (eg: captain’s wife) was if they had social clout that could benefit him

[focsle]

In all the journals you've read, what are your favorite stories?

Oh William Abbe’s is absolutely my favorite journal as a primary source for the stories he shared. He had his flaws made plain in his writing, like all of ‘em, but he also really focused on the social world of the whaleship which is what I care about.

He gave everyone nicknames. Once members of the crew tried to stir up a fight between a man named Charger (known for his slow movements) and Raw Eggs (known to be a chronic prank-farter and had such terrible eyesight that he once said the rising moon was a lighthouse), saying they’d give Charger a shirt if he fought him. When Charger reached down to grab Raw Eggs, Raw Eggs caught his hand and just started vigorously shaking it with a grin as if they were making introductions, thus diffusing the entire fight.

Abbe would sit on the hatch during idle hours in the watch, telling everyone stories by weaving together the plots of different books to make his own and everyone, including his superiors, would gather round to listen.

There was also this whole game he had going on with the captain’s wife aboard which I was reading like a straight up soap opera…I was on the edge of my seat.

Another story I like is when wet-blanket Charles Nordhoff signed on a whaler, and at one point they heard an eerie sound below the waves while they were all sitting in the focsle. All the men were like ‘ohhh it’s a ghost!!’ and Charles was like ‘it’s not a ghost; it’s a humpback whale’. And they were all like ‘no it’s a GHOST and it’s coming from YOUR berth so that means something terrible is going to soon befall YOU’ and others were like ‘share my bunk Charles because you have a ghost in yours, don’t sleep there’ and he was like ‘it’s a whale ghosts are fake’ and then they were all like ‘you don’t believe in GHOSTS? Do you even believe in GOD?’ and then everyone hated him because he didn’t believe in ghosts.

And I love whaling wife Azubah Cash raising her baby, who was born during the voyage, saying that the little whaler’s first words were ‘deck’ and ‘cap’. When he grew up he became a sailor too, at least for a little while.