Jiffynotes index page

How did Ishmael survive? He tells us that he was one of the men in Ahab's boat, replacing the missing Fedallah. He alone managed to avoid the whirlpool, and, as he floated alone in the ocean, he discovered the one piece of wreckage: the life buoy made of Queequeg's coffin. After floating for one day and one night on that coffin, Ishmael was finally rescued by ... the Rachel, who "in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan."