Second officer Matthew Joy starves to death

Date:
03.10.2020

Day: 062

Country:
Norway

Location:
Andenes

Daily kilometers:
0 km

Total kilometers:
5444 km

Soil condition:
Asphalt

Sunrise:
07:11

Sunset:
18:31

Temperature day max:
14°

Night temperature min:
9°

Departure:
10:30

Arrival time:
18:00

Click here for the podcasts!

Link to the current itinerary
(For more posts click on one of the flags in the map)

“Oh yes. So after a month exposed to wind, weather and a merciless sun, they are stranded on the uninhabited coral island of Henderson. It belongs to the deserted Pitcairn Islands in the South Pacific. On the small island, which is about 10 kilometers long and 5 kilometers wide, there was only one small freshwater spring on the northern beach. One of the problems was that the spring was below sea level at high tide, so the castaways decided that there was no chance of surviving any longer. After a week, they decided to leave Henderson again to reach Easter Island. However, the men Seth Weeks, William Wright and Thomas Chapple decided to stay and were rescued five months later on April 5th by the merchant ship Surry. I don’t know what nightmare the three of them experienced on the island, because there was nothing to eat. They probably fed on fish. However, the island was already inhabited by the Polynesians from 1,050 to 1,600. So life in some form was possible. However, the three could not have known that they would be rescued. As the story goes, the others preferred to reach civilization in their three nutshells. If they had known about the main island of Pitcairn, which belongs to the small group of islands and was chosen as a hiding place by eight men from the famous mutiny of the Bounty with their Polynesian wives as early as 1790 and already had 50 or 60 inhabitants around 1820, they would have been saved. But with such a small boat, they would have had to see the neighboring island first. Anyway, it’s all speculation on my part. The story turned out differently and took an even more tragic turn. It wasn’t long before second officer Matthew Joy began to weaken. He was taken to Pollard’s boat, where he died a short time later. The command of his whaling boat was given to the boatman Obed Hendrik, who was one of the Essex’s three harpooners.