In the land of Nod: Episode #1
The fearful tale of the Essex.

Benjamin Duke
oil on canvas
55 x 56
$8,000.00

Featuring:
Self-Portrait as Captain George Pollard Jr.
Porter Rockwell as an older Captain George Pollard Jr.
The ghost of Joseph Smith as First Mate Owen Chase.
JFK as Second Mate Matthew Joy.
Margaret Thatcher as the Oracle (Mad-eye Moody as Democracy).
Henry Moonrod @henry.moonrod as Owen Coffin

Essex was an American whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts, which was launched in 1799. In 1820, while at sea in the southern Pacific Ocean under the command of Captain George Pollard Jr., the ship was attacked and sunk by a sperm whale. Thousands of miles from the coast of South America with little food and water, the 20-man crew was forced to make for land in the ship’s surviving whaleboats.

The men suffered severe dehydration, starvation, and exposure on the open ocean, and the survivors eventually resorted to eating the bodies of the crewmen who had died. When that proved insufficient, members of the crew drew lots to determine whom they would sacrifice so that the others could live. Seven crew members were cannibalized before the last of the eight survivors were rescued, more than three months after the sinking of the Essex.