How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
At that moment I was alone on her decks. There was not a sound in her—and around us nothing moved, nothing lived, not a canoe on the water, not a bird in the air, not a cloud in the sky. (1.2)
Lonely, I'm so lonely… You can tell from the very first lines in this book that the captain feels isolated in the world. Sure, we don't yet realize how isolated he feels from the rest of his crew, but we definitely know his ship is out in the middle of nowhere. So in a sense, the isolation of the ship eventually mimics the isolation the captain feels from the rest of his men.
Quote #2
All these people had been together for eighteen months or so, and my position was that of the only stranger on board. (1.7)
The captain feels bad about the fact that everyone on the ship knows one another well, which basically makes him the new kid in town. That's a lonely proposition in any situation. But it's even worse in this context because the crews of ships are tightly knit and he's supposed to lead them.
Quote #3
But what I felt most was my being a stranger to the ship; and if all truth must be told, I was somewhat of a stranger to myself (1.7)
The captain's sense of isolation from his crew has gotten so bad that he even feels isolated from himself. It can be hard to know who you are when you're alienated from human society, and this is exactly what's happening to the captain.