Pod Insights Tooth & Claw: True Stories of Animal Attacks In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex -- Part 1 About this episode Whaling, it turns out, is not an easy endeavor. One ship found out the very hard way just how deadly the practice can be, covered here by Wes in part 1 of this new series by Tooth & Claw.
Watch here: https://youtu.be/hyV6evjgHiI
~~
Remi: Go to https://shopremi.com/TOOTH and use code TOOTH at checkout for 50% off your new night guard.
Coast: Get up to $2,000 credit for your business when you get started at https://coastpay.com/CLAW. Terms apply
Smalls: For a limited time, get 60% off your first order, plus free shipping, when you head to https://Smalls.com/tooth
Hims: To get simple, online access to personalized, affordable care for ED, Hair Loss, Weight Loss, and more, visit https://Hims.com/TOOTHFabric: Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their family—apply today in just minutes at https://meetfabric.com/TOOTH
~~
To advertise on the show, contact us!
Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/c/toothandclawpodcast
~~
Tooth & Claw is brought to you by QCODE. Support the show and get access to an extensive library of exclusive episodes like this by supporting the show on Patreon or joining the Grizzly Club on Apple Podcasts.
For the latest updates on the show and all things wildlife, follow us at toothandclawpod.com and social:
Instagram: @ToothandClawPodcast
Twitter: @ToothandClawPod
Wes: @GrizKid
Jeff: @jefe_larson
Mike: @mikey3ds
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript 16,956 words · 7 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Wes Larson? Hey everyone. I'm really excited to tell you about a podcast that's actually very near and dear to my heart. It's called Risk and this is a podcast I started listening to in like 2014. I listened to it while I did bear work. I listened to it all the time, like hundreds and hundreds of hours of it. And it's a storytelling podcast where people tell really real stories they never thought they'd dare to share. For example, there's one about a young man that was kidnapped by a Mexican drug cartel. There's one where a young woman discovered the guy she was planning kinky playdates with was her dad. There's tons of stories and for me, this podcast was really important. It was during a time where I was really only hearing stories from my community and it really helped me expand my worldview.
0:41 Wes Larson? And to be completely honest with you, there was a story on this podcast that really helped me during a time where I was going through some difficult changes and I just needed to hear other perspectives. So for that reason, Risk has always been a really important podcast to me. I can't recommend it enough. I've listened to so much of it and I absolutely love it. So if you love hearing people tell real stories about their lives, listen to and follow Risk wherever you get your podcasts.
1:18 Jeff Larson? Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Tooth and Claw Podcast. We have our wildlife biologist, Wes Larson. He's, he's the reason we keep coming back for more. He's the man.
1:30 Wes Larson? I am not the star.
1:32 Jeff Larson? Do it, no one can.
1:34 Wes Larson? That might be true.
1:36 Jeff Larson? We have Mike Smith with us. Um, pretty replaceable.
1:41 Mike Smith? Yeah, I'd say expendable. I would say of the three of us. Yeah. No, I mean, come on. I've been planning my exit strategy for years.
1:49 Jeff Larson? You have?
1:50 Mike Smith? Oh, yeah.
1:51 Jeff Larson? What is it?
1:52 Mike Smith? First of all, I gotta get out of these pants. You guys up to speed on the whole raw denim deal?
1:57 Wes Larson? Uh, no.
1:58 Mike Smith? Yeah, it's pretty, it's limiting my movement. So basically what it is, is you buy a pair of, this is what I've learned from research on the internet. You buy a pair of pants and then you wear them for six months to break them in. And then they start feeling pretty comfortable from what I've gathered.
2:14 Wes Larson? Oh, yeah. Seems like a bad deal.
2:17 Mike Smith? I didn't, I didn't know what I was getting myself into. This is crazy.
2:20 Jeff Larson? It is how people get like their favorite pairs of pants ever.
2:24 Mike Smith? Yeah.
2:25 Jeff Larson? And you may not recognize me. I got blue hair. If you're on YouTube, you're probably like, oh, I thought it was brown and then pink and now it's blue.
2:34 Mike Smith? Yeah.
2:35 Jeff Larson? But I'm Jeff.
2:36 Wes Larson? You're wildin', dude.
2:36 Mike Smith? The three most popular cotton candy colors.
2:39 Wes Larson? That's true.
2:42 Mike Smith? Choc, yeah, chocolate, right?
2:44 Wes Larson? Oh, man. I don't know. A brown cotton candy sounds gross to me. Jeff, you got a new member of your family over there, don't you?
2:51 Jeff Larson? Yeah, I, I put him in a boarding today, though.
2:55 Wes Larson? Okay.
2:56 Jeff Larson? I'm trying to find him a place for, while we're gone, but.
3:00 Wes Larson? It's a dog, not a kid.
3:02 Jeff Larson? Yeah, I got a three-legged dog. A giraffe at the zoo bit his leg off. I missed what you said.
3:09 Wes Larson? I said, it's not a kid, just so everyone knows.
3:12 Mike Smith? Wait a minute. Is the giraffe thing true?
3:14 Wes Larson? No, that's not true.
3:16 Jeff Larson? And then, well, so then how did he lose his leg?
3:19 Wes Larson? Uh, he lost his leg because his, he got hit by a car and his previous owner's maybe, something happened to where he didn't get the right surgery. So when he went to the shelter, it wasn't healing right and they had to amputate. That's how he lost his leg.
3:33 Jeff Larson? That's kinda true. We don't know if he got hit by a car.
3:37 Wes Larson? Okay, but something happened to his leg.
3:40 Jeff Larson? It could have been a giraffe.
3:42 Wes Larson? That, but it didn't bite it off. You said it would draft bit off his leg.
3:46 Jeff Larson? That's true.
3:48 Wes Larson? Yeah, so a giraffe could have kicked him.
3:50 Jeff Larson? Yeah, I want a dog with four legs and, but they offered me 25% off for a dog with three legs.
3:58 Mike Smith? Makes a lot of sense to me.
3:59 Wes Larson? Yeah, you know, you've always been good with money, Jeff, so.
4:03 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
4:03 Wes Larson? Good job. Um, good job adopting, though.
4:06 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
4:06 Wes Larson? He seems really cute.
4:08 Jeff Larson? He's a great dog.
4:09 Wes Larson? Yeah, his name is Shanks.
4:11 Jeff Larson? Uh huh.
4:12 Wes Larson? After a One Piece guy that only has three limbs, right?
4:17 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
4:17 Mike Smith? That's the coolest name, by far the coolest dog name I've ever heard.
4:21 Wes Larson? It is a great name. I liked it.
4:23 Jeff Larson? I, a good test was mom, because mom has no idea who Shanks is at all. And she is like, I think it's cute, so that's good.
4:31 Mike Smith? There we go.
4:32 Jeff Larson? People who don't know who Shanks is kinda likes.
4:35 Wes Larson? You got the Cindy Larson stamp of approval, which isn't always easy to get.
4:40 Jeff Larson? Makes him seem kinda like a prison dog.
4:43 Wes Larson? Yeah, like he's gonna shank someone.
4:45 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
4:46 Wes Larson? Sure, I like that. Well, any other big news out there between you two?
4:52 Mike Smith? No.
4:52 Jeff Larson? I didn't know you had to, like, let him go to the bathroom and...
4:57 Wes Larson? Yeah, they're a lot of work.
5:01 Jeff Larson? Well.
5:02 Wes Larson? It's only, what, 12 more, 13 more years of that.
5:05 Jeff Larson? Cause in that one movie, Meet the Fockers.
5:09 Wes Larson? That's the second one?
5:11 Jeff Larson? Cat how to just use the toilet.
5:13 Wes Larson? Yeah, that's Meet the Parents, right?
5:15 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
5:16 Wes Larson? Meet the Fockers. Not that Meet the Parents was like that good, but there sure was a huge drop in quality as we got to Meet the Fockers.
5:25 Mike Smith? Do you think male dogs actually kinda like it when they're missing one of their back legs, so they don't have to raise it when they pee? They can just pee whenever. They're ready to go.
5:33 Jeff Larson? My dog.
5:34 Wes Larson? That might be true. He's missing a front leg, right?
5:37 Mike Smith? Yeah.
5:38 Jeff Larson? Yeah, my dog like, so he, he's a male, but he pees sitting down and he pees all over his front leg.
5:46 Wes Larson? Like dad. Dad does both of those things.
5:50 Mike Smith? Oh, man.
5:53 Wes Larson? Uh, hey, well, we got a big story today. It's a big one.
5:58 Jeff Larson? Big animal?
5:59 Wes Larson? Yeah, both in the size of the animal and the story itself.
6:02 Jeff Larson? Ooh.
6:03 Wes Larson? This was, um, this was one of the stories that when we started the podcast was one of the first ones to immediately pop into my head. I know I've said that a few times, but this, it's very true with this one. Uh, this is based off of a book and a true story.
6:18 Jeff Larson? Which one was it true with?
6:21 Wes Larson? Uh, I've, I've told the truth with all of those. No, Treadwell was like top of mind. This one honestly though, was probably top three, which is kind of crazy.
6:29 Mike Smith? Yeah.
6:29 Wes Larson? Um, so it's a big episode and in like 2011, I think, uh, one of our mutual friends, Shane, had read this book and he recommended it to me strongly. He said, you know what, Wes, I think you'd really like this book. It's about a true story. It's about animals. It's just really fascinating and I bought a copy of it and I just inhaled it. I loved it. And that book is called In the Heart of the Sea. It's written by Nathaniel Philbrick and it is about the story of the whale ship Essex, which is the true life inspiration for one of the most famous literary works of all time. Mike?
7:06 Mike Smith? Moby?
7:07 Wes Larson? Moby Dick.
7:09 Mike Smith? I don't like the word dicks. That's why I didn't say it.
7:11 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
7:12 Wes Larson? What?
7:12 Mike Smith? Bleep it.
7:13 Wes Larson? Yeah.
7:13 Mike Smith? Moby Richard.
7:15 Wes Larson? Uh, you know, I always call people a mopey dick when they're being kind of mopey and I never get a good laugh for it. And I, I think it's pretty funny.
7:23 Mike Smith? Sure.
7:23 Wes Larson? No one ever thinks that's that funny. So I guess I should stop. All right.
7:30 Wes Larson? So this is going to be a two parter and really there's not a lot of wildlife in this story as far as, you know, what we typically are talking about. There's a very quick, crazy interaction with a whale and there's a lot of, we're going to be talking a lot about whaling and the impact it had on even some kind of surprising wildlife. But it's not a typical story in that this is more a story of survival than it is an attack, if that makes sense. Before we start, I want to read a tweet that I recently saw, which isn't my typical way to start an episode, but I really liked this tweet.
8:04 Jeff Larson? It's called an X.
8:06 Wes Larson? Uh, yeah, an X. Let me read this zit to you guys. Uh, it is from Prince Vogelfrey. I don't know, I'm not, I don't know who this person is. I don't know anything about their account. I'm not promoting them, just so you know, I don't know anything about them, but I did like this tweet. It did make me think.
8:24 Jeff Larson? Be careful nowadays, huh?
8:25 Wes Larson? Yeah, yeah. And it says, "Maybe it all went wrong when we killed the whales. Maybe their songs kept the great dream together. Vast brains slowly, carefully ordering the world with actions subtler than apes could ever see. God is dead, his blubber lit a lamp in London." Which I thought was really pretty.
8:44 Mike Smith? Wow, very poetic.
8:45 Wes Larson? And then, I do think he maybe kind of stole the idea from Cormac McCarthy, who wrote a book on whales and men, or an essay. And it says, "Whales have been evolving for 30 million years to R1 million. A sperm whale's brain is seven times the size of mine. The great size of his body has little to do with the great size of his brain. They actually have the biggest brain of any living animal ever. Other than a place to keep it, I have what-if fantasies. What if the catalyst or the key to understanding creation lay somewhere in the immense mind of the whale? Some species go for months without eating anything, just completely idle. So they have this incredible mental apparatus and no one has the least notion what they do with it.
9:26 Wes Larson? Lily says that the most logical supposition, based on physiological and ecological evidence, is that they contemplate the universe. Suppose God came back from wherever it is he's been and asked us smilingly if we'd figured it out yet? Suppose he wanted to know if it had finally occurred to us to ask the whale? And then he sort of looked around and said, "By the way, where are the whales?" So both of those I thought were really poignant thoughts about this amazing animal that has the biggest brain ever and we have no idea.
9:57 Jeff Larson? Whales might have bigger brains, but like I'd like to see a whale try to fake going to the moon like we have.
10:04 Wes Larson? Sure.
10:07 Mike Smith? You gotta stop. You gotta stop it.
10:11 Wes Larson? Jeff, Jeff needs, this dog will be good for Jeff to get some fresh air. No, I, I do think though, we've, we've talked about whales a bit and about, you know, their songs and their sociality and just all the different things that are so incredible about these animals. And I really do think there's a good chance that we have no idea, you know, just how deep thinkers whales might, you know, could be. So I, I do just want to bring that up before I talk about the absolute horrors that we inflicted on whales during a lot of our modern history.
10:44 Jeff Larson? Technically or literally speaking, they are some of the deepest thinkers.
10:49 Wes Larson? Yeah, good point.
10:51 Mike Smith? Very astute observation. Prince and Cormac are both aware that there are still whales. We didn't get them all.
10:58 Wes Larson? Yes, we didn't get them all, but we sure did a number on them and we sure,
11:03 Wes Larson? it wasn't like an easy way that we killed them too, you know, we, we tortured whales. We have been very violent to whales and I do just want to let people know, we're going to be talking about some of the whaling practices in depth in this episode and they aren't easy to hear about, but I do think it's important that we kind of learn from our mistakes and reflect on the past and in a nice way, it's a good way to see how far we've come in some of our attitudes toward these animals.
11:30 Mike Smith? You want to know what kind of, what method of torture would not be effective on a whale at all is waterboarding. They'd, they'd actually be like really excited.
11:40 Wes Larson? Yes, thank you. I was getting quite dry.
11:43 Mike Smith? A little more.
11:45 Jeff Larson? Well, and interestingly-
11:46 Mike Smith? Right in my blowhole. Thank you.
11:48 Jeff Larson? Airboarding wouldn't really work either.
11:51 Mike Smith? That's true.
11:51 Wes Larson? They're impermeable to most of our best tortures.
11:57 Wes Larson? Okay, so most of my research does come from this book. I did read some other articles and stuff. There are endless sources of information about this story because it is so, it is such a big historical event.
12:08 Jeff Larson? You could probably burn their feet.
12:11 Wes Larson? Yeah, they don't really have feet.
12:13 Mike Smith? Yeah, dangle them over a fire.
12:15 Wes Larson? Their flukes. Yeah. That worked.
12:19 Mike Smith? Put them in an iron maiden, like a huge one, though.
12:22 Wes Larson? All right. As the whale ship Essex left the tiny Nantucket harbor in August of 1819, there were 21 men aboard. 12 of these men were from Nantucket and had been raised in the whaling industry, while nine others had come from off-island. They'd be gone for two to three years in search of sperm whales in the endless expanse of the Pacific Ocean. And each man aboard had hopes of returning richer than when he'd left. But none of these men would return on the Essex, and only nine would survive this voyage. The story of the Essex would become one of the most harrowing and unbelievable tales of death and survival, and like I mentioned earlier, would inspire one of the greatest literary works of all time.
13:03 Wes Larson? And at the center of this story, there's a massive enraged sperm whale. All right. So before we really get into this story, we need to dust off our old time machine, take a trip back four or 500 years. We're not going to do anything else. We're just going to go to Nantucket. Sorry, guys. We're going to wait on all the other stuff we want to do with this time machine. And Jeff, we're not going to see if they actually went to the moon, okay? You just got to accept that we did it.
13:30 Jeff Larson? All right, no.
13:33 Wes Larson? All right. And we are going to go to the heyday of the whaling industry, kind of. We're going to talk about that later, actually, and a tiny island off the coast of Massachusetts that for a brief window was one of the major economic centers of the world. And that island's called Nantucket. I will not get out of here. And we're not talking Nantucket nectar here, the juice.
13:56 Mike Smith? Nantucket.
13:58 Jeff Larson? Nantucket was one of the biggest economic centers of the world at one point.
14:03 Wes Larson? It was. This tiny island.
14:05 Jeff Larson? Get out of here.
14:06 Wes Larson? I'm not gonna get out of here.
14:08 Mike Smith? You get right the heck on out of here, Wes.
14:11 Wes Larson? Nantucket was originally colonized by white people in the late 1600s. English settlers that showed up. I don't love it. The small, grass-covered island sat about 20 miles from the coast of present-day Cape Cod, and traditionally had been inhabited by the Wampanoag tribe, or as they were commonly known as, the people of the first light. This is the same tribe that is famous for first interacting with a lot of the pilgrims that showed up.
14:38 Mike Smith? Is Nantucket?
14:39 Jeff Larson? You'd probably think the whales would be better off if they were still running things.
14:43 Wes Larson? Yeah, I do. I think the world would probably be in a much better place. Uh, Mike, what were you gonna ask about Nantucket?
14:50 Mike Smith? Is Nantucket a Wampanoag, Wampanoag? Is that the tribe?
14:53 Wes Larson? It is.
14:54 Mike Smith? Is that a native word to their language?
14:57 Wes Larson? It is, and I'm trying to remember what it meant.
15:01 Mike Smith? It kinda sounds like a, like a Christian version of a curse word, like a southern, like a dadgummit.
15:07 Wes Larson? Nantucket. Yeah.
15:10 Jeff Larson? Dadgummit.
15:11 Wes Larson? Like a prospector. Uh, let's see, I can find that answer though, real quick. And it means faraway island or sandy sterile soil tempting to no one. Okay. Which isn't true, because of actually where it sat in the Gulf Stream, the weather on Nantucket was really conducive to agriculture. So the earliest settlers saw the island as kind of this grass-covered, wolf-free paradise, where they could grow crops and raise livestock in peace. But word actually got out too quickly, and it didn't take long before every acre of Nantucket was overgrazed, over-tilled, and the residents of the island were forced to look at the sea as a source of their food and livelihood.
15:55 Jeff Larson? I thought you were gonna say wolves found it.
15:57 Wes Larson? Yeah, the wolves made it out there and they were like, oh yeah, we are in the right place.
16:03 Jeff Larson? Yep.
16:05 Wes Larson? North Atlantic right whales gathered near this island during the winter and they'd been named right whales by settlers because they were considered the right whale to kill. And in the early 1700s.
16:16 Mike Smith? What?
16:17 Jeff Larson? No way.
16:17 Wes Larson? Yeah. Like, they were a whale that had, you know, oil, the blubber was good, and they were easy enough to kill. So that's why they're called right whales. I know, it's dumb, but that's what the nickname came from.
16:29 Mike Smith? Okay.
16:30 Wes Larson? We should probably change that name.
16:32 Mike Smith? Wrong whale?
16:32 Jeff Larson? Yeah. Because it never, it didn't make sense the other way either, just like a direction.
16:38 Wes Larson? Yeah, a lot of this stuff doesn't make sense. In the early 1700s, the people of Nantucket learned how to harpoon and kill these whales, and then how to process and sell the oil that came from boiling their blubber. And during the early years of this whaling industry, the indigenous people of the island were completely instrumental in every aspect of whaling, but they were essentially treated like servants by the white inhabitants. It's not like they had a fair shake in this whole industry. Then, in 1712, one of the captains on Nantucket was blown many miles out to sea in a small whaling boat, and he stumbled upon a pot of whales that was very different from the right whales that they were used to. Wrong whales. Uh huh.
17:23 Wes Larson? He managed to harpoon.
17:26 Wes Larson? Ha! He managed to harpoon one of these whales and was thrilled to find that the blubber of the whale was much more rich in oil than the right whales. And even better, this whale had a large reservoir of an incredibly high-quality oil in its rectangular and oversized head that was so accessible, it could be ladled into a cask directly from the whale. Like, you could put a bucket into this cavity and just scoop out oil. That's how easy it was to get to. You didn't have to process it, you didn't have to boil it. Sperm whales literally have a cavity in their head that is full of oil.
18:01 Mike Smith? Wow.
18:02 Wes Larson? And this-
18:02 Mike Smith? Like the avatar whales.
18:03 Wes Larson? Yeah, kind of. It's like the frickin' tulcun, dude. Except this doesn't make you be young forever. I wish it did.
18:10 Jeff Larson? It's like avatars based on the world.
18:15 Mike Smith? Based on the world.
18:17 Wes Larson? There are some parallels.
18:21 Mike Smith? You're eloquent today, Jeff.
18:21 Jeff Larson? He got inspired by the world, dude.
18:23 Mike Smith? Yeah.
18:25 Wes Larson? This fluid was called spermaceti because it kind of looked like seminal fluid. Jeff, that's jizz.
18:32 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
18:32 Wes Larson? Just so you know, we're talking jizz here. And that gave rise to the English.
18:36 Jeff Larson? No jizz looks the same, though.
18:39 Wes Larson? That's true.
18:40 Mike Smith? Oh dude.
18:40 Wes Larson? You are the expert.
18:43 Mike Smith? I just thought of like, the best hustle in the world is you just get your own bucket full of your own fluid and sell it.
18:50 Jeff Larson? Say it's from a whale.
18:51 Mike Smith? And just be like, this is whale.
18:54 Wes Larson? Fluid.
18:55 Mike Smith? Juice.
18:56 Wes Larson? Yeah. All right. Surely a lonely sailor or two has tried that back in the day. Uh, this gave rise to the English name of the whale, the sperm whale. And whale oil was used for a lot of different things. Fueling lamps was one of the primary uses in the early 1800s. But later on, it would be used extensively as lubrication for machinery, for soap making, for candle making, cosmetics, for other industrial applications. And it was even used to make explosives in World War I.
19:27 Mike Smith? Wow.
19:27 Wes Larson? And just like, a quick note, we tend to think of whaling kind of peaking in the 1800s and whale oil only like being important back then to light lamps. But we actually found a lot of other uses for the oil throughout the 1900s. And the highest number of whales were actually killed between 1940 and 1975. Sperm whales quickly became the main target of the entire Nantucket whaling industry. And by 1970, they'd pretty much wiped out all of the local pods of whales. And they had to build bigger boats for longer voyages. We're gonna need a bigger boat. I'm sure someone said that at some point, you know?
20:05 Mike Smith? Yeah, they did.
20:07 Wes Larson? Whaling expeditions that only needed small whaling boats and small crews now needed big schooners, crews of 20 or more, and as more and more whales were extirpated from the Atlantic, the boats were required to travel around the tip of South America, the Cape of Goodhorn, and push into the fertile waters of the Pacific. This meant that trips that used to just last months would now last two or three years, and Nantucket basically became a community of women and children.
20:33 Mike Smith? Oh, utopia, in other words.
20:35 Jeff Larson? Oh, because Panama Canal, Panama Canal didn't exist, Mike.
20:39 Wes Larson? It sure didn't.
20:40 Jeff Larson? And they couldn't go through the Arctic.
20:43 Wes Larson? Arctic Passage, the Northwest Passage.
20:46 Jeff Larson? So then they had to go all the way down there.
20:50 Speaker 03 Coca-Cola. For the big, for the small, the short, and the tall. Peacemakers, risk-takers. For the optimists, pessimists. For long-distance love. For introverts and extroverts. The thinkers and the doers. For old friends and new. Coca-Cola. For everyone. Pick up some Coca-Cola at a store near you.
21:20 Speaker 04 When fall comes back around, there's a sense of a reset. And new pieces from Lululemon's Fall Drop are an inspiration to push your goals and elevate your routines. As your calendar fills, easy-to-layer styles meet the demands of your day. And as you challenge yourself to try even more, versatile sets transition with you. The Lululemon Fall Lineup brings new levels of comfort and confidence, whether you're starting something fresh or starting something over. Check out the latest arrivals in-store and on lululemon.com now.
21:50 Wes Larson? I've been having some tooth problems lately. I'm very lucky that my older brother's a dentist, but I do tend to really clench and grind my teeth at night, and that does cause a lot of problems for me. I even recently cracked a tooth because I was doing it so much. And that's why I'm really excited to tell you guys about Remy. I had an old mouthguard that was too thick. It made me gag when I put it in. I really didn't like it. But Remy Night Guards are just much more comfortable than the one that I had before, and they're a lot cheaper. You can get the same professional quality and comfort as a night guard from the dentist for 80% less the cost by taking your own impression from the convenience of your home. And for me, it was actually more comfortable than the one I got from the dentist. Remy night guards are clinically tested and FDA cleared to prevent teeth damage from grinding,
22:35 Wes Larson? to reduce jaw tension and facial muscle strain, and to improve your sleep quality. So it's really easy how it works. You purchase your impression kit. It comes straight to your door. You follow the step-by-step instructions to get your perfect impression. If you screw up, they're going to set up an appointment for you to talk with a dental professional. It's already super easy, but if you make a mistake like I did on my impression, they make it really, really easy to make sure you do it right. Then they craft and ship your custom-fit night guard straight to your house. You get your night guard back and you start protecting your teeth. So protect your teeth with Remy by using code TOOTH to get 50% off your new night guard.
23:14 Wes Larson? That's 50% off at shop R E M I dot com slash tooth with code TOOTH. And I really do love my Remy night guards. I feel like they're so comfortable in there. I hardly even remember I'm wearing them. I'm not grinding as much. My teeth feel better. Thank you, Remy, for sponsoring this episode. I think when we used to think of like, you know, back in the olden days when men would leave for years at a time to do different, you know, faraway jobs, we'd probably imagine their partners, these women, that the whalers left behind, like pining for their husbands and really struggling in their absence. But the opposite in Nantucket was actually true. The wives loved the few months that their husbands returned from their voyages,
23:57 Wes Larson? but they also really reveled in their freedom and their independence while the men were at sea. And there's a really great poem from Eliza Brock, who was a Nantucket whaling wife, and I'm going to read it. She says, "Then I'll haste to wet a sailor and send him off to sea, for a life of independence is the pleasant life for me. But every now and then I shall like to see his face, for it always seems to me to beam with manly grace, with his brows so nobly open, his darkened kindly eye. Oh, my heart beats fondly toward him whenever he is nigh. But when he says goodbye, my love, I'm off across the sea. First I cry for his departure, then laugh because I'm free."
24:36 Wes Larson? Which I really like that poem a lot.
24:38 Mike Smith? Yeah.
24:38 Wes Larson? Um, they even found some old timey dildos from Nantucket that the women called he's at homes. And that was kind of surprising because the island was really predominantly Quaker. Lots of Quakers there, but also not surprising at all because these are normal physical desires.
24:54 Mike Smith? Sure. What were the dildos made out of?
24:57 Wes Larson? Like plaster.
24:59 Mike Smith? Geez.
24:59 Wes Larson? So I don't know if they like actually made like plaster molds of dicks.
25:04 Mike Smith? Whoa, that's a great business idea.
25:07 Wes Larson? Yeah.
25:08 Jeff Larson? That way it's like not cheating too, if it's a plaster of it.
25:13 Wes Larson? Yep. If it's your, if it's like the exact replica, you're not cheating. I don't think it's cheating anyway. I don't think that's even close. Yeah. All right.
25:24 Mike Smith? You'd be one of those husbands that ladies would be happy to see you go, it sounds like.
25:29 Wes Larson? You're accusing them of cheating. All right. Whaling was dangerous work though, and boats were often lost to storms. Men died of things from like disease and drowning. And about 25% of the women over the age of 23 in Nantucket were what, were what was known as whaling widows. One interesting-
25:47 Jeff Larson? That's kind of a double entendre.
25:50 Wes Larson? Whaling widow? Oh, yeah. Whaling. Yeah. An interesting tidbit is that sperm whale society really wasn't all that different from the unique women dominated society that had been established on Nantucket through whaling. Pods of sperm whales are comprised of interrelated female whales and immature calves. Kind of like elk or a lot of these other animals that have similar mating patterns. Where when you see a big group, it's almost always just females and then immature young. And the females actually with sperm whales work cooperatively to raise the young in the absence of male whales. And they even take turn standing guard and nursing while other females hunt squid in the deep water.
26:33 Jeff Larson? But their, their dildos would have to be like a redwood tree.
26:37 Wes Larson? Yeah, they'd need a lot of plaster for those. The males leave their pods when they're about six years old. They spend most of their lives in higher latitudes where water is colder and more productive. And they only return to their birth waters when they come back to mate, which generally isn't until they're older than 20. These mating encounters are really brief. Mike?
27:00 Mike Smith? Yeah, no, it's relatable.
27:02 Wes Larson? And after successfully or unsuccessfully mating, Jeff, the males return to other waters to hunt. So it's really a very strange mirror of what was happening in Nantucket, too. The males are gone for these long periods of time. They're going off to hunt for years at a time. And then they come back to mate and kind of hang out and then they're gone again. And that essentially is what was going on during the whaling industry in Nantucket.
27:30 Wes Larson? All right, so sorry, there's gonna be a lot of history about Nantucket and whaling before we get started, just because it really is important to the context of the story. We're not going to get too into the different officer classes and responsibilities on the boat. But basically, there's a captain, a first mate, a second mate, boat steers, a steward, sailors, and a cabin boy. And I pretty much said those in like order of responsibility and order of like what you'd get paid to. And the sailors are like the biggest group. There was a pretty big jump in overall status between the captain, first mate, and second mate, and then everyone else. Nantucketers were generally treated better on the ship and given first stab at whaling assignments and chores,
28:13 Wes Larson? while people born off-island were treated as outsiders. And on the Essex, seven of the sailors were black. And the predominantly Quaker-led industry really prided themselves on not taking race into account when it came to how they paid their crew. So black sailors would actually get the same percentage as white sailors of their same rank. But that's not to say racism wasn't very prevalent on these boats and in Nantucket society. They were definitely super racist in their views toward non-Caucasian people, especially African Americans. But this was early 1800s America. So I do think it's pretty impressive that they were at least fair in the way that black sailors were paid.
28:52 Mike Smith? Yeah.
28:54 Wes Larson? But I will say like they didn't really have the ability to climb the ladder within the boat very much. I don't think you would ever see black sailors that were like captains or first mates or second mates. So still a bum deal.
29:07 Jeff Larson? They probably weren't honestly given as good an opportunity just for general education and like things you would need to be able to do to be a captain too. So it'd be hard to but like that's really like I'm I'm sure too like not that's I don't know.
29:24 Wes Larson? This is pre civil war. Yeah, like they weren't treated as slaves, you know.
29:28 Jeff Larson? A lot of times, yeah, it's really interesting that they were paid an equal amount and like a lot of times people with like less opportunity work the hardest. So like that's just cool to hear, you know?
29:42 Mike Smith? I think knowing what I know about these kinds of voyages out to sea, I think paying everyone an equal wage probably incentivizes people to be doing their best work, you know? And when you're you kind of have each other's lives in your hands in a way, I think it was probably just logistically and I'm not trying to take away from like the decision to do this because it was the right thing to do. But I also think there was some kind of like pragmatic thought process behind like, let's make sure everyone's doing as good a job as we can incentivize them to do kind of thing.
30:12 Wes Larson? That's actually Mike, a perfect segue for what I wanted to talk about next, which was pay and the men and the boys that did join the crew and I say boys because the youngest member of the Essex was 14 years old. The people that joined this crew were paid a percentage of the overall haul of whale oil that they brought back. So whatever they got like money wise from that that whale oil, they got a percentage of that and it was called a lay and some of those lays were crazy small. On the previous voyage of the Essex, the cabin boy who's kind of lowest on the the rung, you know, when it comes to to pay, he had received a lay of one over 198 of the total haul. So one 198th of the total haul.
30:55 Wes Larson? And that total haul was $26,500. So he walked away with about $150 for two years of his life. So that's about in today's dollars between $3,000 and $4,000, which is a pretty crazy small wage for two years of backbreaking labor.
31:13 Mike Smith? Yeah, I wouldn't.
31:14 Wes Larson? Yeah, I will say like if you're a cabin boy or a sailor.
31:18 Jeff Larson? How much the Louisiana Purchase cost, dude?
31:21 Wes Larson? It didn't cost $150. Yeah.
31:26 Wes Larson? A big part of your first voyage is though wasn't necessarily that you were going to make a lot of money. It was gaining experience to move up the ranks. And once you got to those higher ranks, you could really make a living out of whaling. When the Whale Ship Essex left in August of 1819, it was captained by 29 year old George Pollard Jr. This would be his first voyage ever as captain, but his fifth year aboard the Essex. He had just married a 19 year old woman the month before, so leaving this time was going to be a bit harder for him. And he's going to be gone for a while.
32:00 Wes Larson? All right. His first mate was Owen Chase, who was 22 years old, very cocky. In the book, he came off kind of arrogant and like pretty bossy and maybe even a little abusive to some of the men that was under his command. There is a movie about this and he's played by Chris Hemsworth and he's kind of like the hero in that. Just so you know, if you've seen that movie and you're listening to this, it is very, very different from the real account. I don't know why they made it so different, but it's very different. So don't put a lot of stock into it.
32:33 Wes Larson? I don't want to smear Owen Chase too badly. The book doesn't paint the best picture of him, at least in the first half. But he does seem like he was a very confident and very experienced whaler for just being 22 years old. He would yell and swear at the men for even just small mistakes. And a lot of these are like little teenaged Quaker kids. So like swearing was a big shock for them. This was a big change for their normal day to day lives.
32:59 Jeff Larson? Sailor talk, though.
33:01 Wes Larson? Yeah, you got it. You gotta put a little swearing in your talk if you're a sailor, whaling. The second mate was 26 year old Matthew Joy. And as I mentioned, the youngest member of the ship was 14 year old cabin boy, Thomas Nickerson. And they talk about him a lot in the book because he wrote one of the accounts from the Whale Ship Essex. And the book really draws on it because he's the most unbiased of the people that wrote about this. So he is like kind of a main character in the book. So that's kind of our establishing picture of this whole disaster and of Nantucket and the whaling industry. We're going to talk a little bit more about it, but we're going to get into the journey. Are you guys ready?
33:41 Mike Smith? Oh, yeah.
33:42 Jeff Larson? Yes.
33:43 Wes Larson? All right. The beginning of the voyage was pretty rocky for the Essex, and that's because they clumsily left the harbor and many of the sailors aboard were really inexperienced or green and didn't know how to work these intricate sails and lines and ropes and workings of the ship. And this clunky start was really embarrassing for Captain Pollard and first mate Chase, because a lot of the old retired whalers and ship owners would gather on this hill above town with their spy glasses to watch the boat as they left. And they were no doubt like mocking the Essex as they pulled out of the port at Nantucket, which is really embarrassing if you're a new captain. As they set out across the ocean, a lot of
34:25 Wes Larson? the men got seasick to begin with. And the way that Nantucketers would try to fix seasickness was really interesting to me. They would tie a piece of pork fat to a string. They would have the seasick man swallow it while they held the end of the string. And then they would pull it back up and make him swallow it again and again and again until the symptoms of seasickness went away.
34:51 Wes Larson? So I, yeah.
34:54 Mike Smith? What's the thought on that?
34:55 Wes Larson? It's one of those things that you like, wonder how they came up with that, like why that was what they settled on, you know?
35:01 Mike Smith? Right.
35:01 Wes Larson? But we should try it when we go to Antarctica.
35:04 Jeff Larson? Almost seems like one of those things where it's like, you know, you stub your toe and then someone like punches you in the face to make your toe stop hurting.
35:12 Mike Smith? Right.
35:15 Mike Smith? I hope it was a prank played on them by some of the Native American tribespeople who were just like, oh, yeah, ancient wisdom. This helps every single time. Just do this. And they're all just laughing at us.
35:26 Wes Larson? 50 years later, they're like, they're still doing it. All right. So despite this bad start, a few days into the voyage, the Essex was actually making really good time. And that was because Captain Pollard had said that he wanted to fly some extra sails that Kind of were a little bit risky and they made you faster, but they were really hard to take down in a sudden storm. So they could be really dangerous. And that's exactly what happened to the Essex. They hit a sudden squall in the Atlantic and the inexperienced captain and crew made some huge mistakes that led to the ship being essentially completely horizontal in the water for a few scary minutes before she righted herself up. So like the edges of their masks were like dipping in the water. They were so far tipped over.
36:09 Jeff Larson? Oh, wow.
36:10 Wes Larson? And they kind of all thought that they were going to capsize. Kind of like us in Komodo.
36:14 Jeff Larson? Yeah, scary.
36:18 Wes Larson? It caused a lot of damage and the biggest problem was that they'd lost two of their five whale boats and a third was heavily damaged. So they had five whale boats aboard and two of them were completely lost and a third was heavily damaged.
36:32 Jeff Larson? So like, once they kill a whale, the whale needs a whole boat to be able to get it back?
36:38 Wes Larson? Kind of, but what these boats were for is they were the boats, the small boats that they would get in to actually pursue the whale.
36:44 Jeff Larson? Oh, sure.
36:46 Wes Larson? And you needed at least three whale boats to be operational and the Essex was down to two. So they managed to mostly repair the damaged ones. They now did kind of have three, but they really didn't know if they felt confident going out and hunting whales. So Captain Pollard had an important decision to make. It was either turn around and go back to Nantucket, kind of with his tail between his legs to get their boats repaired, or continue on to the Azores or Cabo Verde, Cape Verde, where hopefully they could buy another couple whale boats. So they, those are some islands that are kind of off the coast of Africa and that's the direction they were headed at this point. And the captain said, you know what? We're going to go back to Nantucket. And first mate Chase said, no,
37:31 Wes Larson? no, no, let's just go. We'll find some whale boats. And he actually managed to convince Captain Pollard to continue going. And there was no whale boats in the Azores, but they were able to buy a bunch of provisions. And then in Cabo Verde, they got lucky because another whale ship had crashed there and they actually were willing to sell them one of their whale boats. So they're, they went on, went onward. Just a quick explanation of kind of their route that they would do is they would go out to like the Azores and Cabo Verde on the western coast of Africa. And then they would kind of scoot down through the Gulf Stream and stuff to the southern tip of South America. And they're kind of heading up toward Galapagos is where they're trying to go. So it's a pretty big voyage.
38:16 Wes Larson? And it was actually more than three months into their voyage when they saw their first whale. They had a really dry spell, a really big dry spell and didn't really know what was happening, but actually whaling vessels all over the Atlantic were having the same problem. But they finally saw whales in between Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. And they finally got to quickly assemble the whale boats, get into the water and hunt some sperm whales. And this is, we're going to get into, we're going to get into some of the gross details here, but it is important, kind of what they would do when they would hunt sperm whales.
38:48 Mike Smith? So three months is, is that just because the whaling had become so ubiquitous that there just weren't many whales left to see?
38:57 Wes Larson? Yeah, and like the Atlantic is kind of where all of these major, you know, whaling hubs had access to the Atlantic, ready access to the Atlantic. So it was the ocean that got wailed out the first, you know, it, it got like depleted pretty quickly.
39:13 Jeff Larson? They're just hitting the same spots.
39:16 Wes Larson? Yeah, like people from the UK, people from the US, people from all parts of Europe, Africa, South America, they were all whaling the Atlantic mostly.
39:27 Jeff Larson? Spain?
39:28 Wes Larson? Spain.
39:29 Mike Smith? Spain? What about Spain?
39:32 Wes Larson? Portugal, I said Europe.
39:33 Mike Smith? Don't forget about Portugal.
39:35 Wes Larson? I won't, I never would. So basically when they saw sperm whales, the men would rig the boats, quickly sharpen the harpoons and lances, then launch the boats and row toward the whales. Captain and the first and second mates would be standing on the stern of the boats and each of the three whaling boats. And then they would direct the men where to row because the rowers would be facing backward and not toward the front of the boat. All but three of the men from the ship would be in the whale boats and the three men that stayed behind were kind of responsible for taking care of the main ship.
40:11 Wes Larson? They'd race on the water when they're rowing and they would close this mile between them and the whales pretty quickly. They generally launch the boats when they're about a mile away. And experienced whalers would have a really good knowledge of when whales were about to dive and then when they would come up, where they would come up after they dove. So they would get themselves to the exact right place to harpoon when the whale surfaced again. And the book talks a lot about how they would kind of get bloodlust during this part. And the author even describes their whale hunting fever as like, almost erotic, how intense they would get about killing whales. These dudes really loved killing whales. So on this particular day, Chase's boat was the first to get to this whale.
40:54 Wes Larson? And the harpooner now had this job of driving the harpoon deep enough into the whale that it wouldn't dislodge. This harpoon is connected to this really long length of rope. And basically, once the whale is harpooned, it's going to drag the boat, and they call this a Nantucket sleigh ride, until it exhausted itself. And then, once it's tired enough and that whale kind of surfaces again, the leader of that whale boat would take a 12-foot lance with a pedal-shaped blade and would thrust it into the whale, trying to reach vital organs for a kill.
41:26 Mike Smith? This really is very sexual, all the terminology and the imagery and everything.
41:32 Wes Larson? Like a Nantucket sleigh ride is probably something else now.
41:35 Mike Smith? Yeah, for sure.
41:37 Wes Larson? Someone get on Urban Dictionary and see what that means nowadays. I'm sure it's something. But yeah, this is the worst part, is they would take this lance and they're trying to like, find a vital organ to kill the whale. And that's easier said than done. And sometimes they would have to thrust over a dozen times to kill the whale, which leads to a ton of blood and oil on the surface as this whale is thrashing around. And I'm gonna read a quick selection from the book. That's kind of dark, but I think it paints a good picture of what this looked like. When the lance finally found its mark, the whale would begin to choke on its own blood and its spout transformed into a fifteen to twenty foot geyser of gore that prompted the mate to shout chimneys of fire. As the blood rained down on them, the men took up
42:21 Wes Larson? the oars and backed furiously away, then paused to watch as the whale went into what's known as a flurry, beating the water with its tail, snapping the air with its jaws, even as it regurgitated large chunks of fish and squid. The creature began to swim in an ever tightening circle, then just as abruptly as the attack had begun with the first thrust of the harpoon, it ended. The whale fell motionless and silent, a giant black corpse floating fin up in a slick of its own blood and vomit. So it's not pleasant.
42:50 Jeff Larson? No.
42:50 Mike Smith? It's sad.
42:52 Jeff Larson? It makes sense, though, like it's the biggest animals in the world, so it's like, you can't just get like one of those things from No Country For Old Men that kill cows.
43:03 Wes Larson? Yeah, that's true.
43:05 Jeff Larson? Like, you got it, it's got, yeah.
43:07 Wes Larson? You gotta get some organs.
43:09 Mike Smith? You have to flip a coin first, you know, call it. The whale doesn't know how to speak. What's it gonna say? Make one of those like twenty minute long songs that they sing? That's not gonna help.
43:21 Wes Larson? After they killed the whale, it'd be dragged back to the ship where the blubber would be removed and cut into small squares and boiled. The fire would first be lit with wood, but then they would take this crispy whale skin and feed the fire with it, and that would produce this terrible smell and a bunch of really black oily smoke. They then cut open the whale's head and they would access this case of the whale, which was this cavity that had up to five hundred gallons of spermaceti, that, that oil. And it's this really, yeah, it's really high quality and it'd actually solidify a little bit when it was exposed to air. But they would literally get inside of this cavity with buckets and like bucket this oil out into casks.
44:05 Wes Larson? The final thing that was kind of crazy that they would look for in these whales is they would probe its intestines because whales that were like constipated or had intestinal problems had this ashy opaque substance called amburgus, ambergris in their intestines. And they used it in perfume and it was really valuable. It's like worth its weight in gold. So they would look for that too. Yeah. One whale would provide about-
44:31 Jeff Larson? Back in the day, I feel like perfume really gave you an advantage. Yeah. No, I'm saying like nowadays, it's like you can get cheap stuff. You can get expensive stuff. It's hard to notice the difference sometimes, but like back in the day, if you had like an expensive perfume, you were turning heads.
44:51 Wes Larson? That's true.
44:52 Mike Smith? Yeah. Everyone must have been super gross if the remains of whale intestines made you smell better-
44:58 Wes Larson? It smelled great.
44:59 Mike Smith? Than before.
45:01 Wes Larson? Yeah.
45:01 Mike Smith? Filthy. Yeah. I don't know. I won't ever try it personally.
45:07 Wes Larson? No. Well, they still use some weird things in perfumes like civet glands and yeah. One whale though would provide about 40 barrels of oil and the men on the Essex were hoping to get about 1,400 barrels during their entire voyage. So about 35 whales is what they're hoping to kill. There was obviously a lot of spillage, a lot of blood. So the boat would pretty much look like this blood covered inferno by the end of processing a whale. It would sometimes take up to three days just to process one whale and it was a very dirty business. Anyway, on this day, Chase's boat pulled up next to this whale, his inexperienced harpooner is about to take his first throw.
45:48 Wes Larson? When suddenly all of these men are thrown more than 10 feet up into the air, the boat explodes around them. And that's because another whale had hit the boat from below with its massive tail. And the men were uninjured, but they're now just clinging to the wreckage of this boat and waiting for rescue from the other whale boats.
46:06 Jeff Larson? Wow.
46:07 Wes Larson? And while a whale had never attacked like a big boat before, they did often, you know, in their rush to get away from these men, they would sometimes destroy the smaller whale boats. And so this isn't like totally unheard of.
46:23 Speaker 03 Coca-Cola. For the big, for the small, the short, and the tall. Peacemakers, risk takers. For the optimists, pessimists. For long distance love. For introverts and extroverts. The thinkers and the doers. For old friends and new. Coca-Cola. For everyone. Pick up some Coca-Cola at a store near you.
46:53 Speaker 04 When fall comes back around, there's a sense of a reset. And new pieces from Lululemon's fall drop are an inspiration to push your goals and elevate your routines. As your calendar fills, easy to layer styles meet the demands of your day. And as you challenge yourself to try even more, versatile sets transition with you. The Lululemon fall lineup brings new levels of comfort and confidence. Whether you're starting something fresh or starting something over. Check out the latest arrivals in store and on lululemon.com now.
47:22 Mike Smith? This episode is brought to you by Coast. If your business hasn't changed how you pay for gas and materials, you're losing tens of thousands a year to fraud, hidden fees, and hours spent on paperwork. Coast Pay eliminates fraud, saves you money, and automates all of your accounting, all in a card that can be used anywhere Visa is accepted. Coast Pay is the modern fuel card and expense management tool built for fleets. This isn't software built by someone who's never run a crew. Fuel, maintenance, materials, now all on one card with real control and instant visibility. You see every transaction the moment it happens. No more end of month surprises. If someone tries to fill up at an odd time or buy something outside their limit, you'll know instantly. And fraud protection actually works on Coast.
48:05 Mike Smith? No shared pins, no missing receipts, no guessing. Employees check in by text, Coast verifies the purchase, and you stay in control. And unlike old fuel cards, Coast works everywhere Visa is accepted. Every gas station, every brand, every time. Your drivers aren't detouring just to find the one station that'll take your card. Right now, Coast Pay is offering our listeners up to $2,000 in credit when you get started at coastpay.com/claw. Go to coastpay.com/claw to see how you can earn up to $2,000 in credit. Terms apply. That's coastpay.com/claw. Disclaimer: The Coast Visa Commercial Credit Card is issued by Celtic Bank. All card accounts subject to credit approval. Thank you, Coast, for sponsoring this episode.
48:50 Wes Larson? Something I didn't really expect at this stage in my life was to become a cat person, but I am. I absolutely love my cat Toad. I get so excited to see him every day. He's just so sweet and nice and just such a great addition to my day, every day. And because of that, I want to make sure that he's happy and that's why we feed Toad Smalls. Smalls is fresh, protein-rich meals that support cat health and cat happiness. So they're living their best nine lives. And I really do think it's important that our pets are happy. And one of the happiest parts of their day should be when they're eating. I know we're constantly giving our pets little treats and whatnot, and they just get so excited to have a treat, so why can't their food just be a treat too?
49:31 Wes Larson? And Smalls really is. It's preservative-free, 100% human-grade ingredients that you'd find in your fridge, and it's delivered right to your door. Cats.com actually named Smalls their best overall cat food. And for a limited time, you can get 60% off your first order plus free shipping when you head to Smalls.com/tooth. For me, I just noticed after feeding Toad Smalls, he just seems happier. His breath is a little bit better and his coat does really look shinier. So stop guessing which meals are gonna upset your cat's stomach or not make them happy. For a limited time, because you are a Tooth and Claw listener, get 60% off your first order plus free shipping when you head to Smalls.com/tooth. One last time, that's 60% off your first order plus free shipping
50:16 Wes Larson? when you head to Smalls.com/tooth.
50:20 Wes Larson? So really, this isn't their ideal first hunting trip. But a few days later, they do see some more whales. They finally kill and process a whale. And it's a really slow start to this whole journey. They're four months at sea, only one whale. To make matters worse, they're pretty under provisioned. So all these men are like pretty cranky and not happy with just eating like salty beef and hard tack all the time.
50:43 Jeff Larson? Do they not eat the whale?
50:45 Wes Larson? I, that's a good question. Like, you would think that they would have as much meat as they could ever want.
50:51 Jeff Larson? Yeah, just kind of gross, but at least you're not starving.
50:55 Wes Larson? I know that whale meat is pretty high in mercury, but I still think you can eat it in a pinch. So I don't know. I don't know why they didn't eat more whale. But the waters got really cold and rough as they approached Cape Horn. They were hit by some really strong westerlies as they came around the tip of South America. They had to fight that wind for a full month before they were finally able to make it around the Cape, which must have just been miserable. And they finally make it around though. And when they do, they run into these other whale ships and they get some really bad news. And that bad news is that everyone on the Pacific side of South America is also having a really hard time finding whales and killing whales. And this used to kind of be their honey hole.
51:38 Wes Larson? This used to be where you would be able to fill your boat with whale oil. Oil. Whale oil is really hard to say. Try saying it once.
51:46 Jeff Larson? Whale oil.
51:48 Wes Larson? It's not easy.
51:48 Mike Smith? Has anyone ever done that joke to say whale oil beef hooked really fast?
51:56 Wes Larson? Whale oil beef hooked? What's that? I don't get that joke. Beef hooked.
52:01 Jeff Larson? Whale beef.
52:02 Mike Smith? Yeah.
52:03 Wes Larson? Okay, I got it. Yep.
52:05 Mike Smith? Well, I just did it to you, so now you can say someone's done it to you. Congratulations.
52:10 Jeff Larson? Is that an actual joke you've heard?
52:12 Mike Smith? Yeah, that's a thing, people.
52:14 Jeff Larson? Whale oil.
52:16 Mike Smith? It's like an Irish man saying, I don't know, it's weird. It's a real weird.
52:21 Wes Larson? Think about that one. Yeah.
52:22 Jeff Larson? In an Irish voice, it'd be real funny.
52:26 Wes Larson? Anyway, you know, rather than kind of realize, hey, maybe we need to press pause on whaling because we're not finding whales anymore. What they decided to do was look for new whaling ground and push further out into the Pacific. And there was this tale of this captain who had pushed about a thousand miles from the coast of Peru and had found tons of sperm whales. And he named this area the offshore ground. So Pollard and his crew decided to give it a shot. They headed up the coast of South America, the western coast. They managed to kill about 11 sperm whales by the time they reached what is now southern coast of Ecuador. And they went offshore for a little bit. It was like paradise for them.
53:07 Jeff Larson? What's like their goal?
53:08 Wes Larson? Thirty-five whales. Yeah. But when they got to Ecuador, they went on on land and it's kind of paradise. There's fruit everywhere. It's warm. It's beautiful. You guys have been to Ecuador.
53:18 Jeff Larson? Loved it.
53:19 Wes Larson? And one of their men actually ends up jumping ship. One of the sailors is just like, hey, I'm out of here. And I don't blame him. It sounds like I probably would want to do the same. But it was really bad news for the Essex because they really don't have extra guys. And it meant they would only be able to leave two people on the whale ship when they went whaling, or on the main ship when they went whaling. All right, they kill a few more whales on the way to Galapagos. And then when they get to Galapagos, they started a different kind of slaughter. And what they would do, as we learned in Galapagos, is the men would go out and collect hundreds of live tortoises from the islands that they would keep alive on the ships as this kind of sort of long-term food source.
54:02 Wes Larson? The tortoises were really easy to catch, and they'd sometimes provide hundreds of pounds of meat. So they were just considered this kind of free food for sailors. And the men would go out hiking and they would tie the legs of the tortoise together and then actually like hoist them onto their backs and then backpack them to the ship.
54:21 Jeff Larson? Wow.
54:22 Wes Larson? This wholesale tortoise slaughter led to the extinction of several of the different tortoise species in the Galapagos and the near extinction of the others. It was also insanely cruel because they thought that tortoises could go weeks or even months without food or water. So they didn't feed or give water to these tortoises onboard. And they would just kind of slowly wander around and like lick all the different planks trying to get food and water. So these tortoises were just starving slowly aboard these ships.
54:50 Jeff Larson? Dude.
54:51 Wes Larson? Which is pretty sad.
54:52 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
54:53 Wes Larson? So while the Essex was hunting tortoises on one of the islands, one of the men, Thomas Chapel, who's a bit of a prankster, decided he would set fire to the dry brush on the island while the men were hunting, uh, which ended up leading to a huge wildfire. Yeah. He almost killed the entire crew.
55:13 Jeff Larson? Dude.
55:13 Wes Larson? And he burned this entire island and likely killed thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of reptiles and birds. And that island was one of the first islands to lose all of its tortoises.
55:24 Jeff Larson? Wow.
55:25 Wes Larson? Which is wild, yeah. So Nickerson, this little cabin boy, actually like loved the wildlife of the Galapagos. And he was one of the only people that seemed to kind of have some remorse about all of this.
55:37 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
55:38 Wes Larson? All right.
55:39 Jeff Larson? That one guy would have been like a streamer nowadays, huh?
55:43 Wes Larson? Yeah, and he probably would have gotten like hella clout for doing that.
55:47 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
55:48 Wes Larson? You guys know kind of ocean sizes relative to each other?
55:53 Jeff Larson? Yeah. Kinda.
55:55 Wes Larson? What's the biggest?
55:57 Jeff Larson? Pacific.
55:58 Mike Smith? Specific.
55:58 Wes Larson? Yeah. And is it significantly bigger than the other oceans?
56:03 Mike Smith? Good amount, yeah.
56:04 Wes Larson? It sure is. It's actually kind of hard to grasp just how vast the Pacific Ocean is. And I didn't fully understand it until I read this book. It's about 12,000 miles from the shore of Colombia to Indonesia, which is crazy.
56:20 Mike Smith? Dude, yeah, when you like spin the globe, if you see a globe and you spin it to be looking at just like the other side of the planet Earth, it's all just the Pacific Ocean. And then you spin it around to see the land, basically. It's pretty wild.
56:34 Wes Larson? I think growing up, for whatever reason, it kind of seemed like crossing the Atlantic was similar to crossing the Pacific. And it's not like the Atlantic is a short hop compared to crossing the Pacific. They're vastly different oceans. And on November 20th, 1819, the men of the Essex were about 1,500 nautical miles west of Galapagos. And about as far from land as you can be in the world. So like from any island, from any kind of land, they were kind of out in the middle of everything.
57:06 Wes Larson? Four days previous, they'd hunted some whales. And once again, a whale surfaced under Chase's boat and left the men clinging to wreckage. Once again, they had to abandon their hunt. So on the 20th, on a bright, clear day with very little wind, they spotted whales and they launched the whale boats. Chase led his boat to a spot where he thought the whales would surface. And sure enough, his experience once again proved really valuable. The whale surfaced right next to his boat, a little too close even. He had taken over the harpooning and when he threw this harpoon, the whale slapped its tail against his boat and opened up a big hole in the side of the boat. So immediately water starts pouring in. He grabs a hatchet, he cuts the rope on the harpoon
57:50 Wes Larson? and then orders his men to stuff their jackets into this hole so they can get back to the ship. They go back to the ship. They lift their boat up onto the deck where he starts nailing some canvas over the hole. And we're gonna pin this for next episode. But he's really pounding this hammer into the canvas on the side of this boat. And that echo is reverberating through the water.
58:14 Mike Smith? Hmm.
58:15 Wes Larson? Whoa. Both Captain Pollard and second mate Joy had harpooned whales and they were being taken on these Nantucket sleigh rides. So Chase is kinda pissed that he's once again like out of the game and he's back on the Essex trying to fix his boat. He has little Thomas Nickerson, the 14 year old, I think he's 15 now, take over the helm of the Essex while he's working on this boat. And he's having Nickerson steer the ship toward where Pollard and Joy are. And while he's doing that, they all look down in the water and they see something strange.
58:49 Mike Smith? Cathulu.
58:50 Wes Larson? What they see is a whale.
58:52 Mike Smith? Oh.
58:53 Wes Larson? Yeah, what was your guess?
58:55 Mike Smith? It was one of the ancient ones, cathulu?
58:57 Wes Larson? Cathulu, that would be, yeah, you know, maybe whales are the ancient ones.
59:01 Jeff Larson? You'd think they would not find it strange at this point.
59:04 Wes Larson? A whale, he's like, whoa, a whale. You're right, Jeff, but it wasn't just any whale. This was the biggest sperm whale that any of the men had ever seen. Easily longer than 85 feet. And there's a reason for that. They were seeing a male sperm whale, which they didn't often see. And the strange thing about this particular whale was that its head was mostly out of the water. It was about 100 yards away and it was pointing straight toward the ship. And generally, when they approached pods of whales with the larger ship with the Essex, the whales would panic and flee. But this one was just kinda floating there. It was blowing its blowhole toward them.
59:46 Wes Larson? And then it dove and surfaced even closer to the ship about 35 yards away.
59:52 Mike Smith? Pretty unsettling.
59:53 Wes Larson? Yeah, like blowing its blowhole aggressively has to feel a little weird.
1:00:01 Jeff Larson? It's like Brad Pitt eating his steak in Mr. And Mrs. Smith.
1:00:07 Wes Larson? The men thought this was curious, but they weren't really nervous or scared at all because after all these years of whaling, no ship had ever purposely been sunk by a whale. But then this whale did something that really actually did alarm the the men aboard the Essex. It started pumping its huge tail back and forth and then side to side. And then it shot through the water toward the ship, leaving a big wake of water on either side of its head. So it's aimed straight toward the port side of the ship, which is the left side if you're facing the front. And it's leaving just like a wake of water as it's shooting across the surface of the water.
1:00:43 Mike Smith? It kind of did the cartoon move where your legs start spinning before you actually start moving.
1:00:49 Wes Larson? Or like you wind up a punch.
1:00:52 Mike Smith? The Donkey Kong, yeah.
1:00:55 Wes Larson? Chase only had time to yell to Nickerson, pull the helm hard up when the whale crashed into the side of the boat. And the noise was so loud that it drowned out everything else. Tortoises went skidding across the deck, all of the men crashed to the boards. And then they slowly got up and stared at each other in amazement like they had all just kind of lived the same nightmare and were waking up from it. A sperm whale had just deliberately rammed their boat. But this whale wasn't done. Sperm whales, as we mentioned, have the largest brain of any animal on earth, and they're also the largest tooth predator on earth. So this like, you know, we know
1:01:36 Wes Larson? that orcas are the number one kind of apex predator on earth, but sperm whales are bigger and they are toothed whales, but they're mostly hunting like giant squid and other things.
1:01:46 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:01:48 Wes Larson? It's impossible to know exactly what this particular whale was thinking, or why it had decided to ram the whale ship repeatedly. We're going to talk about that a little bit in part two. But the fact that it didn't immediately swim away after the first collision, makes me think that it now at this point is enraged. It wants to like another shot. That first collision could have been a weird accident or like a miss, you know, just didn't know what it was, what it was. But now I think this whale is pissed. The men feel the whale bump the bottom of the ship as it passes underneath the Essex. And then it tears off the false keel as it passes by, which is this huge board on the bottom of the ship. And then it does something even stranger.
1:02:31 Wes Larson? The huge whale surfaces right next to the ship and floats with the entire top of its body exposed. Its head is near the bow or the front of the ship and its tail is all the way down near the stern. It's a big whale and it's kind of just showing the men like how big it is. It's floating right next to the boat.
1:02:50 Jeff Larson? Almost acting like it's like a mating opponent or something like.
1:02:54 Wes Larson? Yeah, which it could have thought. And again, we'll get into that and why the hammering was important in part two. But it floats there long enough that the men are thinking, maybe it stunned itself from the collision or something. And Chase grabs his harpoon. And he's thinking, okay, I'm going to harpoon this whale from the Essex. And he's ready to throw the harpoon when he notices the whale's tail is dangerously close to their rudder. And we all know what happens when whales rip off rudders on this show. Cause we've talked about orcas doing it. It, it like kills your boat if you lose, if you lose your rudder. You can't go anywhere at that point. It's a big deal. And Chase knew that. And so he really didn't want to lose the rudder out in the middle of the Pacific.
1:03:38 Wes Larson? And he decides not to harpoon this whale. And this is a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his life and through the horrors of the months ahead.
1:03:48 Wes Larson? So pretty much a third of a sperm whale's body is its head, and the head is cushioned by this huge cavity of oil. So really, they're really good at ramming stuff if they have to without really feeling much. And it didn't take long for this sperm whale to be ready to fight again. It swam about 600 yards away, and the men in the Essex watched as whale started thrashing in the water, snapping its jaws with rage and fury, as Chase would say in his diary. And then about 100 yards away, it swam perpendicular to the bow of the boat and then lined up with the Essex again. Meanwhile, Chase is yelling at the men to get the pumps ready in case they were taking on water, and he's not really paying attention to the whale. But he really should have been.
1:04:31 Wes Larson? Because at this point, it's speeding through the water toward the Essex faster than before. It looks like a huge 85-foot torpedo moving across the surface of the water. Chase would later say that it was one of the most terrifying things he'd ever seen, and that it was leaving a whitewater wake more than 40 feet across as it barreled toward them.
1:04:51 Mike Smith? What?
1:04:52 Wes Larson? He yelled at Nickerson to change course and try to avoid the whale, but it was too late. A huge shattering crash rocks the boat, and even though the men were prepared this time, they all fell to the deck again, and they felt their ship being pushed through the water. The whale had lodged its head into the hole in the boat, and it was pushing the entire ship through the water as it pumped its tail back and forth. It's pushing so hard that the boat is starting to list all the way to the side, and the rails on the opposite side of the boat are like there's water coming up over them because the whale's pushing so hard and fast through the water.
1:05:30 Mike Smith? Geez.
1:05:31 Wes Larson? Then, in just an instant, the whale disengages, it swims off, they never see it again, and one of the men yelled that the ship is filling with water. Chaos ensues and everyone's scrambling to get the whaleboats ready to get off the boat. But one of the black crewmen, a steward named William Bond, had the foresight to run to the captain's quarters and grab some navigational equipment. And that's a decision that would ultimately save some of these men's lives.
1:05:58 Mike Smith? Hell, yeah.
1:05:59 Wes Larson? They load whatever they can into chests. They load those chests into the whaleboat. They get the whaleboat into the water just as the Essex starts to list dangerously to the port side. And as they get into the whaleboat and clear the ship, the Essex groans and capsizes as they all watch in horror. The scene was very surprising to the men out in the other two whaleboats. Cause they had no idea what was going on. At one second, the Essex is there and the next second it's gone.
1:06:27 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:06:27 Wes Larson? So their entire lives are in this boat and they watch it just disappear. And they release their whales. They both were on whales. They cut their, they cut their harpoons and they paddle back to the ship. And as they get closer, they can make out the, the shape of the ship, the Essex floating on her side. And the whaleboat with Chase's men nearby. They pull up and all three of the loaded whaleboats just stare in stunned silence at the Essex. And Pollard is so overcome by grief that he falls to his seat. And then he finally looks up at Chase and says, my God, Mr. Chase, what is the matter? Which is like, you know, I think a phrase that's changed in its meaning over the time.
1:07:10 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:07:10 Wes Larson? But he was like, asking what happened? And Chase replies, we have been stove by a whale or like sunk by a whale, essentially. The 20 men of the whale ship Essex had just made history as the only whale ship to ever be attacked and sunk by a whale. And now they were floating in the Pacific, basically as far from land as you can possibly be in the world. And they had just survived a traumatic and harrowing event. But their real trauma and pain and horror was really just beginning. And that's what we're going to talk about in episode two.
1:07:44 Mike Smith? No, Wes, come on, dude. Please, I'll do anything.
1:07:48 Wes Larson? A little spoiler. These guys are going to run out of food aside from each other.
1:07:54 Mike Smith? Whoa. All right. Maybe I can wait. Well.
1:08:00 Speaker 03 Coca-Cola. For the big, for the small, the short, and the tall. Peacemakers, risk takers. For the optimists, pessimists. For long distance love. For introverts and extroverts. The thinkers and the doers. For old friends and new. Coca-Cola. For everyone. Pick up some Coca-Cola at a store near you.
1:08:31 Speaker 05 Whenever fall comes back around, it always feels like a fresh start. This year, I've been layering in some styles from the new Lululemon Fall Drop, because the weather is shifting and I find I have to be ready for the entire day and not just one part of it. Lululemon's Fall line has some really versatile transitional pieces, so I can just wake up, throw on a matching set, add a jacket or a fleece, and head out, knowing that I'll feel comfortable enough to go wherever the day takes me. Check out the new fall arrivals in-store and online now at lululemon.com.
1:09:00 Jeff Larson? ED doesn't mean that your love life is over. It means you're just getting started. With personalized treatment options to help you take back control and spontaneity, thanks to daily meds. Through Hims, you can access personalized prescription treatment options for ED if prescribed. You shouldn't have to go out of your way to feel like yourself. Hims brings expert care straight to you with 100% online access to personalized treatments that put your goals first. Think of Hims as your digital front door that gets you back to your old self with simple 100% online access to trusted treatments for ED and more, all in one place. To get simple online access to personalized, affordable care for ED,
1:09:43 Jeff Larson? hair loss, weight loss, and more, visit hims.com/tooth. That's hims.com/tooth for your free online visit. Hims.com/tooth. Featured products include compounded drug products, which the FDA does not approve of or verify for safety, effectiveness, or quality. Prescription required. See website for details, restrictions, and important safety information. Actual price will depend on product and subscription plan.
1:10:11 Mike Smith? If you've been putting off getting life insurance, there's no better time to do it than now. Over 2/3 of Americans overestimate the cost of life insurance, but it's much more affordable than you think. And Fabric by Gerber Life makes it so quick and so easy to make sure that your family has more financial protection this year. Fabric by Gerber Life is term life insurance you can get done today. Made for busy parents like you, all online, on your schedule, right from your couch. You could be covered in under 10 minutes with no health exam required. I don't have any kids, but I remember the first time I signed up for life insurance, I named my dad my beneficiary. And honestly, even just that, I was a young guy, fresh out of college, just got my first job, and I felt a weight lift off of my shoulders. So I can't even imagine how good it would feel if you have a wife, a husband,
1:10:55 Mike Smith? children, all that you want to take care of financially. And like I said, if you have kids, especially if you're young and healthy, it's time to lock in low rates now. And even if you, like I, had life insurance through your employer, it may not offer enough protection for your family, and it may not follow you if you leave your job. Fabric has flexible, high-quality policies that fit your family and your budget. Like a million dollars in coverage for less than a dollar a day. $1 a day, that's like a 10th of my daily candy budget. Should probably look into getting life insurance with these guys. So join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their family. Apply today in just minutes at meetfabric.com/tooth. That's meetfabric.com/tooth. M-E-E-T, fabric.com/tooth.
1:11:40 Mike Smith? Policies issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company. Not available in certain states. Prices subject to underwriting and health questions.
1:11:48 Wes Larson? All right, you guys got any questions before we get to our categories? It's kind of a long story.
1:11:54 Mike Smith? Yeah. Do you think maybe...
1:11:55 Wes Larson? I'm glad you bared with me.
1:11:58 Mike Smith? We could use some of this whale oil in the NFL players that wear those safety helmets? Sounds like it's a pretty good cushion for the head.
1:12:06 Wes Larson? They're huge heads. Those helmets look like sperm whale heads.
1:12:10 Mike Smith? They're so big, a third of the body.
1:12:13 Jeff Larson? It might be more fun if, like, instead of sticky gloves, we gave them like oil gloves.
1:12:20 Wes Larson? The ball's just like slipping and making it even harder to catch. I like that idea. I will say, if you are interested in this stuff, this book is so good. It's a great book. It really goes into a lot more detail about the men, about like Nantucket. It's just a really interesting time in, in the world's history. So I do really highly recommend reading the book because I'm really glossing over a lot of fun details and horrific details. Okay, anything else before we move on?
1:12:52 Jeff Larson? No. Would they kill orcas?
1:12:56 Wes Larson? I don't think so. I think they really focused on like the ones that they knew they were going to get enough oil for it to be worth it. And sperm whales were really like the best. They were kind of cream of the crop when it came to whale, whale oil.
1:13:10 Mike Smith? Whale oil.
1:13:10 Wes Larson? Whale oil, yeah.
1:13:12 Jeff Larson? And they were called sperm whales because their oil looked like sperm?
1:13:16 Wes Larson? The, the oil in their, in their case or whatever, in the, that cavity in their head looked like sperm.
1:13:23 Jeff Larson? Wow.
1:13:24 Wes Larson? We talked about that for like 10 minutes, so we should definitely remember that fact.
1:13:29 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:13:31 Jeff Larson? You said the fact, we talked about sperm for like 10 minutes.
1:13:34 Wes Larson? That's true. Good point.
1:13:36 Jeff Larson? Making sure.
1:13:38 Wes Larson? Yep.
1:13:38 Mike Smith? Another day on the job.
1:13:39 Jeff Larson? Cause that's a weird thing to name one of the coolest animals because of.
1:13:45 Wes Larson? I know. There's a lot of animals that when you figure out what they were named after, it's kind of like, why didn't, why don't we rename that? You know, like sloth bears and sperm whales.
1:13:54 Mike Smith? You would have, you would have thought a sperm whale would have been like, yo Aquaman, you just like change this name?
1:14:02 Wes Larson? Give me a new name. It's Aquaman who's naming animals these days?
1:14:06 Mike Smith? Well, you probably could.
1:14:07 Wes Larson? Or he's like ambassador to people.
1:14:09 Mike Smith? Yeah, he's the in-between.
1:14:11 Wes Larson? Sure.
1:14:12 Jeff Larson? But like Aquaman would have to tell them, your name is sperm whale.
1:14:17 Mike Smith? That's true.
1:14:18 Wes Larson? He probably lies to these animals.
1:14:20 Mike Smith? It's like, no, you're the super, super sick whale.
1:14:23 Jeff Larson? You're the best. Godzilla whale.
1:14:28 Wes Larson? All right, uh, first category.
1:14:30 Jeff Larson? That'd be cool.
1:14:31 Wes Larson? All right, your first category is favorite sperm whale from pop culture.
1:14:35 Jeff Larson? Uh, I'll go first.
1:14:37 Wes Larson? Okay.
1:14:37 Jeff Larson? I'm gonna choose Pearl.
1:14:40 Mike Smith? Oh, SpongeBob?
1:14:41 Jeff Larson? Yeah, it's Mr. Krabs' daughter in SpongeBob, which.
1:14:46 Mike Smith? That's right, huge head.
1:14:48 Jeff Larson? Would he have had sex with?
1:14:50 Mike Smith? Pearl?
1:14:51 Jeff Larson? Krab? No.
1:14:53 Mike Smith? Oh, to produce Pearl.
1:14:54 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:14:55 Mike Smith? I think it was a ad- adoption situation.
1:14:59 Jeff Larson? Maybe.
1:15:00 Mike Smith? Right.
1:15:01 Jeff Larson? Wes, what's one, one characteristic of Mr. Krabs?
1:15:05 Wes Larson? Uh, he likes to yell.
1:15:08 Jeff Larson? Nah, kinda, yeah.
1:15:11 Wes Larson? What is it? What, what?
1:15:13 Jeff Larson? I'd say he loves money.
1:15:15 Mike Smith? Money!
1:15:16 Wes Larson? Oh yeah, he does love money, doesn't he? That's true.
1:15:19 Mike Smith? His pupils always turn into dollar signs.
1:15:21 Jeff Larson? He does yell, though.
1:15:23 Wes Larson? He yells a lot. All right.
1:15:25 Mike Smith? My favorite sperm whale is gonna be Laboon. The one piece answer, predictable, but it's gotta be a sperm whale from all the characteristics I can identify. Huge head, the little lower jaw with the teeth.
1:15:36 Wes Larson? I think sperm whales are commonly like whales, you know, in, in cartoons and stuff. Like if you draw a whale, it's often a sperm whale. But my favorite is, um, Monstro from Pinocchio. Like a really scary sperm whale from a very early animation, so.
1:15:52 Mike Smith? Yeah.
1:15:53 Wes Larson? Cool.
1:15:53 Mike Smith? Classic.
1:15:54 Wes Larson? All right, I also asked you guys what the most sexual.
1:15:58 Mike Smith? Sorry, I keep interrupting you, but I need to talk about the Polly Shore Pinocchio. And in the trailer, he's like.
1:16:04 Speaker 06 But father, when can I leave to be on my own? I've got the whole world to see.
1:16:09 Wes Larson? You are. Is it a serious movie?
1:16:12 Mike Smith? It's just like an animated Pinoc- another animated Pinocchio movie. It's from that year when there were like five Pinocchio movies that came out.
1:16:18 Wes Larson? Okay, I think I did see.
1:16:20 Mike Smith? But everybody, I urge you to go, I'll put in a little voice clip right here so you all can hear just how funny this line delivery from Polly Shore is. It's the best. It's the best.
1:16:30 Wes Larson? All right, category number two, the most sexual or horniest animal name. Because, you know, sperm whale is kind of up there, so. Did you guys, were you guys able to find any weird horny animal names?
1:16:42 Mike Smith? I went with the spiny lump sucker.
1:16:44 Wes Larson? Yeah, I considered that one.
1:16:47 Mike Smith? Yeah, it looks like horny adjacent. It's not like all the way, but you know, you can use your imagination.
1:16:54 Jeff Larson? My mind just went to like the tits, the birds that we call tits, like yellow.
1:17:00 Wes Larson? Elegant tits.
1:17:01 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:17:03 Wes Larson? Yeah, I like that. Tufted tit tyrant is a bird we might see down in southern Argentina.
1:17:10 Mike Smith? Triple T. Whoa.
1:17:13 Wes Larson? I picked the slippery dickfish.
1:17:17 Jeff Larson? What?
1:17:18 Wes Larson? Was definitely stood out among the other ones that I found. It's an actual fish slippery dick. Okay, we're just gonna leave that behind. We're gonna do a real quick. We're Jeff and Mike paying attention.
1:17:31 Jeff Larson? Oh no, I got real sleepy halfway through.
1:17:33 Wes Larson? Well, so yeah, I know you weren't paying attention because I said they were gonna kill about thirty five whales. And two minutes later, you asked me.
1:17:41 Mike Smith? You asked.
1:17:41 Wes Larson? How many whales they had to kill. But that's not one of the questions. Let's do it. So whoever loses, we pick their first movie on our flight to Antarctica. I like that, that penalty. Do you guys like that? Are you, are you good with that? Okay.
1:17:59 Wes Larson? Who wants the first question?
1:18:01 Mike Smith? Jeff.
1:18:02 Wes Larson? Jeff, what year did the whale ship Essex leave Nantucket?
1:18:08 Jeff Larson? Eighteen nineteen.
1:18:11 Wes Larson? Correct. Good job. It's one for Jeff. Yeah. Mike, how old was Captain Pollard when they left?
1:18:20 Mike Smith? Twenty six?
1:18:22 Wes Larson? Twenty nine.
1:18:23 Mike Smith? Nah, shoot.
1:18:24 Wes Larson? Oh, sorry. I should have let you try and steal that. Jeff, would have you been able to steal it?
1:18:28 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:18:28 Mike Smith? I think he probably, he dug that other answer out of the recesses of his brain.
1:18:33 Wes Larson? I'll give you a chance. I'll get, how old was Owen Chase the first mate? Jeff?
1:18:38 Jeff Larson? Is you okay if I get this right, Mike?
1:18:40 Mike Smith? Yeah, whatever.
1:18:42 Jeff Larson? Twenty three.
1:18:43 Wes Larson? Twenty two. Very close.
1:18:44 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:18:44 Wes Larson? Okay. Jeff, your second question. I did not. What modern day country were the men in when one of their crew jumped ship?
1:18:54 Jeff Larson? Bill, play back where he says twenty three.
1:18:57 Wes Larson? Okay, Bill, please play back where I said how old Owen Chase is. Jeff, what modern day country were they in when one of their crew jumped ship?
1:19:06 Jeff Larson? Uh, that's easy. Ecuador.
1:19:09 Wes Larson? Ecuador, correct. Mike, what is the name of the cape at the very southern tip of South America?
1:19:16 Mike Smith? Cape Horn.
1:19:18 Wes Larson? Correct.
1:19:18 Mike Smith? Which, if you say it really fast, it kind of sounds like you're saying gay porn.
1:19:23 Wes Larson? It does. Cape Horn, Cape Horn. You had a lot of really fastisms on this episode. All right.
1:19:30 Jeff Larson? If you say gay porn, do you ever think of Cape Horn?
1:19:33 Mike Smith? That's all I can think about, yeah. It's the tip of South America.
1:19:37 Jeff Larson? When someone's like, "Yeah, I was watching gay porn," you're like, "You were thinking about the Cape Horn?"
1:19:43 Mike Smith? What's, what is it?
1:19:49 Wes Larson? All right. Jeff, how many total men were aboard the Essex when they first set sail?
1:19:56 Wes Larson? This is your last official question, too, just so you know.
1:20:00 Jeff Larson? Twenty-three.
1:20:02 Jeff Larson? I got twenty-three in my mind.
1:20:04 Mike Smith? Yeah. Uh, twenty-one?
1:20:06 Wes Larson? Correct.
1:20:07 Mike Smith? Ooh.
1:20:08 Wes Larson? It's tied up. Matt or Mike, you have a chance here to take the lead.
1:20:12 Mike Smith? Matt?
1:20:12 Wes Larson? How many total whale?
1:20:17 Mike Smith? That's crazy.
1:20:18 Wes Larson? This was an episode that took a long time. How many total whaleboats did they have when they left Nantucket?
1:20:24 Mike Smith? Three.
1:20:25 Wes Larson? Whaleboats.
1:20:26 Jeff Larson? Ooh.
1:20:26 Wes Larson? Jeff, would you like to steal?
1:20:28 Jeff Larson? Yeah. Five.
1:20:29 Wes Larson? Five, correct.
1:20:30 Mike Smith? Why do they have that many?
1:20:32 Wes Larson? They needed a spare. They needed two spares, yeah. They needed three operational ones, but they wanted to have spares, too.
1:20:38 Mike Smith? That's lit.
1:20:39 Wes Larson? All right, so Jeff's winning three to two.
1:20:41 Jeff Larson? Spare wheels.
1:20:42 Wes Larson? We do this, uh, uh, what's his name? Um, Gandalf's, uh, the other guy, the other wizard.
1:20:51 Mike Smith? Saruman?
1:20:52 Wes Larson? No, the, the one in Harry Potter.
1:20:54 Jeff Larson? Dumbledore.
1:20:55 Wes Larson? Dumbledore.
1:20:55 Jeff Larson? You're doing Dumbledore rules?
1:20:57 Wes Larson? Yeah. So, bonus question.
1:21:01 Wes Larson? Bonus question. Actually, you know what? Let's do it. This just ties it up if you get it, and you both have to pick a movie for each other. Uh, if Mike gets it, if Jeff gets it, he wins. No, this is a bonus question. So it's, you both have had three questions. You're winning three to two. So if Mike gets this, you both get to pick a movie for each other. If Jeff gets it, he wins. What species of whale, and don't yell out an answer because I'm gonna get specific here. What species of whale was their main target before they started hunting sperm whales? And I will only accept their full name because I did say it at the very beginning.
1:21:39 Mike Smith? That's impossible.
1:21:41 Jeff Larson? Right whales.
1:21:42 Wes Larson? Think about where they were found when they first started hunting them.
1:21:47 Mike Smith? Nantucket right whales.
1:21:50 Wes Larson? North Atlantic right whales. And I did say that. I was careful to say the whole name. So Jeff wins. You get to pick Mike's first movie.
1:21:59 Wes Larson? I look forward to seeing what it is. Yeah.
1:22:01 Jeff Larson? Good game.
1:22:02 Wes Larson? All right.
1:22:03 Jeff Larson? I don't know how I got eighteen nineteen.
1:22:06 Mike Smith? That's pretty wild. I was really excited for you there.
1:22:10 Jeff Larson? I knew it was the eighteen hundreds is where I was at.
1:22:14 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:22:14 Mike Smith? So you had a hundred years to play around with in your brain.
1:22:17 Wes Larson? I did say it like three times. So maybe it just got, you know, it got put in there, but. All right. Another question for you guys. What's your favorite historical nonfiction book? Because this one is up there for me.
1:22:29 Mike Smith? Oh, that's a toughie. Oh, man, that's tough.
1:22:33 Wes Larson? I can lead off because I have my answer. I really like Unbroken, which was about Louis Lamparini or whatever his name is. He's the guy that like got shot down in the ocean, survived floating on the ocean and then survived a Japanese POW camp. It's just a really inspiring story. I thought I really enjoyed that one.
1:22:53 Mike Smith? What was the the substance called from the whale brains? It was like spermarete?
1:22:58 Wes Larson? Spermaretti? Spermasetti.
1:23:00 Mike Smith? Spermase. That also sounds kind of like an Italian surname.
1:23:04 Jeff Larson? Yeah, spermasetti.
1:23:07 Mike Smith? I'm gonna go with, I just finished actually a really, really great one called Madhouse at the End of the Earth. It's about a really awfully organized and executed voyage down to Antarctica by the Belgica.
1:23:23 Mike Smith? So that one's just top of mind just because I finished it recently, but I'll go with the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by Shearer. It's, uh, he was a journalist. He was on the ground before the US was even involved in World War II. He just has a really unique boots on the ground kind of perspective of what was happening in Europe during the rise and the fall of the Third Reich. It's a real tough book to walk around with in public because it always just has a giant swastika on it. Like no version of the book has ever been printed to my knowledge. They just doesn't have like a massive glowing red and black swastika plastered all over the front of it. But awesome book. Really, really cool. A little dated here and there, but it's
1:24:04 Mike Smith? got, I don't know. It's just a really unique perspective on the whole situation. And I really, I think it's valuable insight.
1:24:11 Wes Larson? Yeah. When we moved into our house, like we got, I got to tour it before the other people moved out. And there was like a few too many Nazi books, you know, where it's like, if there's a couple, you're like, oh, we're dealing with the history buff here that likes to kind of read about everything. There was just a couple too many where it was kind of like, hmm.
1:24:32 Mike Smith? Yeah. Four or five, you're starting to wonder.
1:24:35 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:24:36 Jeff Larson? Mine is Mein Kampf.
1:24:38 Wes Larson? No, it's not.
1:24:43 Jeff Larson? No, mine, I don't know. I, I really loved Escape from Camp 14, but like from a North Korean prisoner that escaped, but then I've kind of looked back and seen that a lot of that stuff's been disproven. So it's kind of hard to, there's probably not completely nonfiction anymore.
1:25:08 Jeff Larson? I like No Man Knows My History. I like, um, Hiroshima is a good one. Just like hearing the account of everything in Hiroshima and the new kid. So, okay, couple.
1:25:23 Wes Larson? Alright, um, Jeff, do you got a couple of listener questions for us?
1:25:28 Jeff Larson? Yes.
1:25:29 Mike Smith? Read them, please.
1:25:30 Jeff Larson? Do you want me to start out with my hottest one?
1:25:34 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:25:35 Jeff Larson? Alright, this is the hardest one. Cat3Anderson asks, "What's my favorite animal?" Like, what's their favorite animal?
1:25:45 Wes Larson? Their favorite animal? I don't know.
1:25:47 Mike Smith? What's their name?
1:25:47 Wes Larson? Is there an answer?
1:25:49 Jeff Larson? Uh, cat but with a K.
1:25:52 Mike Smith? Oh, okay. I'm gonna go with leopard.
1:25:54 Wes Larson? Oh, we're just supposed to tell them what their favorite animal is?
1:25:58 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:25:59 Mike Smith? Leopard.
1:26:00 Jeff Larson? I'll stick by Mike. I think, I don't think we can give her three favorite animals.
1:26:04 Wes Larson? Sure, leopard, yeah.
1:26:05 Mike Smith? Cause K cat, maybe that's Katherine Hepburn on Bringing Up Baby. It's gotta be that.
1:26:10 Jeff Larson? Alright, PHF Silva asks, "Hey guys, did you see there's a movie called Grizzly Night, inspired by Night of the Grizzly?"
1:26:18 Wes Larson? Yeah. Kind of a funny story is our network was reaching out to us about potentially making a movie about Night of the Grizzlies. Like, being producers on a movie that would be a dramatic retelling of Night of the Grizzlies, and we were kinda starting to talk to them about that. And then we saw the trailer for that movie, so it's kind of a bummer, and it doesn't look great to me, but enjoy it if you see it.
1:26:43 Jeff Larson? You think that's a funny story?
1:26:45 Wes Larson? Uh, yeah, I guess. It's not really funny, but ironic.
1:26:49 Jeff Larson? Maddie Bolster asks, "The Olympics have been amazing. What's a sport that should be added?"
1:26:56 Mike Smith? Snowball fight.
1:26:57 Jeff Larson? Let's say winter.
1:26:59 Wes Larson? I like that.
1:27:01 Mike Smith? Are you kidding me? How has that not been added yet?
1:27:04 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:27:05 Mike Smith? You could go like, one-on-one, like solos, and then doubles, and then team. It could be like a whole swath of events to be added.
1:27:12 Wes Larson? Yeah, I don't have a better answer than that. I would like to just see like, long slide. Like, you just run on the ice and you slide as far as you can.
1:27:20 Mike Smith? Ooh, that's good.
1:27:22 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:27:27 Jeff Larson? I want, I like the, I really like, I always forget what it's called, but the cross-country skiing with shooting.
1:27:33 Mike Smith? Biathlon?
1:27:34 Wes Larson? Biathlon.
1:27:35 Jeff Larson? Biathlon. So I want like, the snowboard half-pipe with shooting.
1:27:41 Wes Larson? Yeah, but it's like a rocket launcher. It's an RPG.
1:27:44 Jeff Larson? No, no, no, but you do like a backflip while you're like, shooting targets.
1:27:49 Mike Smith? Yeah, for sure.
1:27:50 Jeff Larson? Upside down.
1:27:50 Mike Smith? I like that.
1:27:52 Wes Larson? Everyone has to like watch behind bulletproof glass.
1:27:55 Mike Smith? I genuinely don't know which of these three I'd rather attend.
1:28:01 Wes Larson? The sliding one would be fun because it's kind of like, I wonder if I could beat that, you know, like you go out and test it, but.
1:28:07 Mike Smith? Well, that's like the secret sauce of the Olympics is a lot of the events you kind of secretly think like handball. It's like, of course, I couldn't be as good as they are at handball, but somewhere in the back of my brain, I'm like, I could be the worst person on a handball team and go to the Olympics.
1:28:24 Jeff Larson? I could be the guy laying down on the two man.
1:28:29 Mike Smith? That's two man luge.
1:28:31 Wes Larson? You're just padding for the other guy. It is though, like, it's always fascinating to me to think, how did this person decide to devote their entire life to curling, you know, like, what happened at what stage in their life where this just became their sole focus, you know? It's fascinating.
1:28:49 Jeff Larson? Mike always has like, maybe it's a little bit more rational for him because he was like a great high school athlete. But he always has this like irrational thought every once in a while where he's like, dude, why don't we just play basketball for two years straight and then go play in Europe? Or something like that.
1:29:07 Mike Smith? Play in the Euroleague.
1:29:09 Wes Larson? Or like for the Shanghai Sharks.
1:29:11 Jeff Larson? I kind of feel like if you said curling, I would be like, you know what? Maybe, maybe if we do curling for three years straight, we might actually like.
1:29:20 Mike Smith? We could do it.
1:29:21 Jeff Larson? Yeah. Dez Avery ask, what do you think is the most misunderstood animal in attack history? So like, what's the most misunderstood animal attack?
1:29:33 Wes Larson? Yeah, I would say venomous snakes.
1:29:37 Wes Larson? I think like, I think there are still.
1:29:39 Jeff Larson? Asking for like a specific animal attack story.
1:29:44 Wes Larson? Oh, like one attack story?
1:29:46 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:29:47 Wes Larson? It sounded to me like they were saying like the most misunderstood like type of animal for like attacks. Okay, so for the way that I interpret it, I'd say venomous snakes because I think there are a lot of people out there that still think snakes like seek people out to bite them like they're attacking people and every venomous snake bite is defensive. They don't, they're not trying to kill us or eat us or anything. But as far as like a single story that might be misunderstood, maybe Treadwell. Just because like so many people know about it and so many people still think that he was like doing good out there, that he was like protecting the bears. Yeah.
1:30:28 Jeff Larson? Yeah. Steve Irwin, aren't people still mad at like stingrays?
1:30:34 Wes Larson? Probably.
1:30:35 Mike Smith? Yeah. Maybe he antagonized the stingray. Do we know?
1:30:39 Wes Larson? Well, you know, we're gonna do his story at some point, but I don't think we know. But he did antagonize a lot of animals. Bless his heart.
1:30:47 Jeff Larson? Medusa?
1:30:48 Wes Larson? Sure.
1:30:48 Jeff Larson? Oh wait.
1:30:49 Mike Smith? That's a misunderstood one.
1:30:50 Jeff Larson? She's the one that had the, who's the, no Cleopatra.
1:30:55 Mike Smith? Snake?
1:30:55 Wes Larson? Oh, the asp.
1:30:56 Mike Smith? Bit her on the breast or whatever.
1:30:58 Jeff Larson? Yeah. Like the snake, she forced it to.
1:31:02 Mike Smith? Medusa is the one whose hair was made out of snakes, which is crazy that she never got bit. That's something to think about.
1:31:10 Wes Larson? You got any more questions?
1:31:11 Mike Smith? I'll go with sharks as most misunderstood animal for attacks, just because it seems like most of the time it's exploratory or whatever the word is you always say.
1:31:19 Wes Larson? Uh, yeah, between them and snakes, I think are are the winners. You got more questions or is that it, Jerf?
1:31:26 Jeff Larson? Uh, that's it.
1:31:28 Wes Larson? All right. We're gonna do a quick conservation corner.
1:31:32 Wes Larson? It's estimated that the worldwide population of sperm whales was over a million before the commercial whaling industry began. Yeah. In the early 18th century, by 1880, they think they had removed about 30% of those sperm whales. And then from that date until 1946, they do think that they partially recovered. But then after the Second World War, when whaling technology really progressed too, they started using like exploding harpoons, a lot of different things. The population declined to about 30% of the pre-whaling population. They think there was over a million sperm whales that were killed between the 1800s and the 1900s.
1:32:18 Wes Larson? So hunting really led to the near extinction of large whales, including sperm whales. But then bans were instituted in 1917 by the International Whaling Commission. They got full protection in 1985 sperm whales. But Japan did continue to hunt them until 1988. You know, those Japanese, they just, they love whaling. It's hard to take that away from them.
1:32:41 Jeff Larson? Like ocean food.
1:32:42 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:32:43 Mike Smith? They do.
1:32:43 Wes Larson? Sperm whale numbers are now thought to be around 350,000, which is a lot better than most whales. They're still listed as vulnerable by the IUCN. Their current challenges are entanglements and fishing nets, collisions with ships. And then they're losing a lot of their prey to overfishing, like the rest of the world's whales. So those are their main threats. They're still definitely threatened or vulnerable, so. All right, and then our claw rating. It's a new animal. So we're going to give them a claw rating from zero to 10 claws.
1:33:16 Jeff Larson? This is tough.
1:33:18 Wes Larson? Yeah, this was a hard one for me, too. Because I think it's an animal that if we were out like scuba diving or snorkeling and I saw, it would be like my number one animal encounter of the year and probably for like a very long time. But I don't know if they're even my favorite whale.
1:33:36 Jeff Larson? They're not my favorite whale, but I think they deserve to be, but they're not.
1:33:40 Wes Larson? They're cool whales, like that they dive. We're going to talk more about their biology.
1:33:44 Jeff Larson? I'm going to put them at 104, 9 claws.
1:33:49 Mike Smith? Whoa, yeah, that's strong. I'll go eight.
1:33:53 Wes Larson? Yeah, I think I'm also going to go eight. It's cool that they're the biggest toothed predator on the world and they're really interesting. And that's really, I think it's so cool that they have the biggest brain of any animal ever. Cool name. But they just have never really risen to the top for me when it comes to whales.
1:34:14 Jeff Larson? Actually, they might not even have the most sexual whale name.
1:34:18 Wes Larson? What whale has a more sexual name?
1:34:19 Jeff Larson? Humpback.
1:34:21 Wes Larson? Just for you out there that maybe thought, oh, I wish there's a little more biology in this episode, there's gonna be more in part two, and we're probably gonna do a subscription episode that's really about their biology and more about the whaling industry history that we'll dive into a little bit deeper. So just so you guys know, there's so much information in this one that I couldn't really squeeze in a ton of biology.
1:34:42 Mike Smith? Well, you did a great job regardless, Wes.
1:34:45 Wes Larson? Thanks.
1:34:46 Jeff Larson? Yeah.
1:34:46 Wes Larson? Thanks. Uh, part two is gonna be very interesting. It's the part that I think about when I think about this story.
1:34:54 Jeff Larson? Where the whale hit the ship.
1:34:56 Wes Larson? Yeah, pretty crazy. It wasn't even a white whale. Like, it wasn't Moby Dick. They had to, they had to kind of
1:35:03 Jeff Larson? What color?
1:35:04 Wes Larson? Flash it up a little bit. Just a normal sperm whale, kind of blackish when you see him from the surface.
1:35:09 Mike Smith? Yeah, classic Hollywood whitewashing.
1:35:11 Wes Larson? All right. Well, thanks for listening, everyone. We love ya.
1:35:15 Mike Smith? Oh. We got, yeah, what's up?
1:35:17 Jeff Larson? Will you post the whole episode this time?
1:35:20 Wes Larson? Yeah.
1:35:21 Mike Smith? I, so Mercury was in retrograde. I just have come to learn during that whole technical snafu.
1:35:28 Jeff Larson? What is your sign?
1:35:29 Wes Larson? That's what it was.
1:35:30 Mike Smith? I, I think I'm a Virgo.
1:35:31 Jeff Larson? Oh, no wonder.
1:35:33 Wes Larson? Oh, that makes sense. No wonder that happened.
1:35:35 Mike Smith? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's not my fault. It's the stars. Astrologically, I was doomed to fail.
1:35:42 Jeff Larson? All right.
1:35:42 Wes Larson? Well, don't do it again, and we love you guys.
1:35:44 Jeff Larson? We love you.
1:35:45 Wes Larson? See you later.
1:35:46 Jeff Larson? Bye.
Previous Punch the Lonely Monkey and Other Recent Animal Encounter News Stories Next In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex -- Part 2 Page updated October 31, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated