![]() "lack and uglyĪs she was," Nickerson wrote, "I would not have exchanged her for a palace." ![]() In between was a creaking, compartmentalized world, a living thing of oak and pine that reeked of oil, blood, tobacco juice, food, salt, mildew, tar, and smoke. The hot July sun beat down on her old, oil-soaked timbers until the temperature below was infernal, but Nickerson explored every cranny, from the brick altar of the tryworks being assembled on deck to the Finally, after what had seemed an endless wait, Nickerson was going to sea. ![]() He was fourteen years old, with a broad nose and an open, eager face, and like every other Nantucket boy, he'd been taught to "idolize the form of a ship." The Essex might not look like much, stripped of her rigging and chained to the wharf, but for Thomas Nickerson she was a vessel of opportunity. ![]() It was, he later remembered, "the most pleasing moment of my life"-the moment he stepped aboard the whaleshipĮssex for the first time. ![]()
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