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
Pequod (Moby-Dick) his new friend, the Polynesian harpooner Queequeg (or more precisely, Queequeg's idol-god, Yojo), to make the selection for them both, Ishmael, a self-described "green hand at whaling," goes to the Straight Wharf and chooses the "Pequod". It is revealed that "Pequod" was named for the Algonquian-speaking Pequot tribe of Native Americans, decimated and scattered in the early 1600s by the Pequot War and by the epidemic that preceded it. The Mashantucket (Western Pequot tribe) and Eastern Pequot tribe still inhabit their reservation in Connecticut. "Pequod" has endured the years and the elements, but not without sustaining damage. The ship has