American whalers and the East Sea in the 1840s: Peril and adventure

In the mid-1840s, the peaceful isolation of the East Sea was disrupted by the appearance of large, strange-looking vessels — three-masted and two-decked — flying a red, white and blue flag. These were American whaling ships, mainly from New Bedford, Massachusetts, along with a few from smaller New England ports, crewed by men of many nationalities in search of whales, a bit of adventure and, of course, pockets full of money when they returned home. These whaling vessels often passed Jeju Island and sailed through the Korea Strait — the narrow passage separating Korea from Japan — to enter the East Sea whaling grounds. In early 1846, one American described circling Jeju Island for about a week on a calm summer sea — a strange description considering it was winter. Unfortunately, he didn’t consider the “Isle of Beauty” important enough to describe it in any detail, noting only that the crew “saw many whales and captured some.” As for the East Sea itself, he declared the whaling to be “so easy” as “the fish were so numerous that we had no occasion to chase them wWeiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Korea Times