Ishmael (Moby-Dick) morning Ishmael and Queequeg head for Nantucket. Ishmael signs up for a voyage on the whaler "Pequod", under Captain Ahab. Ahab is obsessed by the white whale, Moby Dick, who on a previous voyage has severed his leg. In his quest for revenge Ahab has lost all sense of responsibility, and when the whale sinks the ship, all crewmembers drown, with the exception of Ishmael: “And I only am escaped alone to tell thee” (Job) says the epigraph. Ishmael keeps himself afloat on a coffin until he is picked up by another whaling ship, the "Rachel". The name Ishmael is
History of whaling expanded into the open sea. Gradually whaling in the open sea and along the ice floes to the west of Spitsbergen replaced bay whaling. At first the blubber was tried out at the end of the season at Smeerenburg or elsewhere along the coast, but after mid-century the stations were abandoned entirely in favor of processing the blubber upon the return of the ship to port. The English meanwhile stuck resolutely to bay whaling, and didn't make the transfer to pelagic (offshore) whaling until long after. In 1719, the Dutch began "regular and intensive whaling" in the Davis Strait. Nevertheless,