One day in 1819, 3,000 miles off the coast of Chile, in one of the most remote regions of the Pacific Ocean, 20 American sailors watched their ship flood with seawater.

　　1819年的某一天， 在距離智利海岸3000英里的地方， 有一個太平洋上的最偏遠的水域， 20名美國船員目睹了他們的船只進水的場面。

　　They'd been struck by a sperm whale, which had ripped a catastrophic hole in the ship's hull. As their ship began to sink beneath the swells, the men huddled together in three small whaleboats.

　　他們和一頭抹香鯨相撞，給船體撞了 一個毀滅性的大洞。 當船在巨浪中開始沉沒時， 人們在三條救生小艇中抱作一團。

　　These men were 10,000 miles from home, more than 1,000 miles from the nearest scrap of land. In their small boats, they carried only rudimentary navigational equipment and limited supplies of food and water.

　　這些人在離家10000萬英里的地方， 離最近的陸地也超過1000英里。 在他們的小艇中，他們只帶了 落后的導航設備 和有限的食物和飲水。

　　These were the men of the whaleship Essex, whose story would later inspire parts of "Moby Dick."

　　他們就是捕鯨船ESSEX上的人們， 后來的他們的故事成為《白鯨記》的一部分。

　　Even in today's world, their situation would be really dire, but think about how much worse it would have been then.

　　即使在當今的世界，碰上這種情況也夠杯具的，更不用說在當時的情況有多糟糕。

　　No one on land had any idea that anything had gone wrong. No search party was coming to look for these men. So most of us have never experienced a situation as frightening as the one in which these sailors found themselves, but we all know what it's like to be afraid.

　　岸上的人根本就還沒意識到出了什么問題。 沒有任何人來搜尋他們。 我們當中大部分人沒有經歷過 這些船員所處的可怕情景， 但我們都知道害怕是什么感覺。