The wind from the bitter North has eased, the sun is not far above the horizon. Surf crashes again and again and again. Birdsong. I am home. It's been a perfect day but I'm not satisfied with Nantucket. No ancient mariner stopped me, I don't feel like I will go away a sadder and a wiser man. Except, perhaps, for moments like right now.
Mention was made in the whaling museum of the story of the Essex which is a fascinating basis for Melville's Pequod. The whaling descriptions in Moby Dick are overwhelmingly accurate, not the least due to the fact that Melville himself was on a whaler for a while. Other than that, there is nothing here that is a solid link to the book. Melville didn't visit Nantucket until long after he had written his masterpiece. There is no Spouter Inn, no Chapel. As so often happens with me, I have out-literalised the creators of my romantic visions. It all started with the exploding of my romantic notions in Africa and hasn't slowed down since. My father was the main source of so much of my romanticism and yet I am already, at 36, far more a citizen of the world than he ever was.
The oldest house on Nantucket, built in 1686, is lovingly guarded by Tim and Susie from the Historical Society. Tim, a recent Minnesota graduate in archaeology has an interest in marine archaeology (involving, of course, lots of diving) and is off to Southampton after the summer on Nantucket. Susie enthusiastically explains everything within the house and also mentions in passing that the original inhabitants of Nantucket were Christianised long before the first 10 settler families arrived in 1659. Their language was documented, the Bible was translated and they ceased to exist.
Sitting here now, I look across this ocean and smile. Across this water lies ... home. WE crossed this ocean and arrived in this place and changed it, utterly. Yes WE - the sea-faring, adventurous ones from Europe - the Norse, the Scots, the English, the Basques, the Bretons, the French. What of the Spanish and Portuguese? Their legacy seems to be one steeped in squalor and corruption - things not greatly evident here in this rich man's playground. But perhaps that just means the rape in the North of the Americas was more brutal, more complete than further south. But no, I don't think so. On Nantucket there is no mention of conflict between native and newcomer except for a small fort built by the settlers in case of attack. Ultimately, though, it is too easy to be serene about such things when no indigenous people remain.
It seems the early explorers preferred the apparent safety of islands over the unknown vastness of the mainland.
