by Thor Heyerdahl, 1947 (Skyhorse Publishing 2010)
Six men, led by Thor Heyerdahl, build a raft out of Balsa Wood logs and sail from Peru to the South Pacific trying to prove that the Polynesians originated from South America rather than Asia.
What an adventure – from getting the logs in the Andes to crash landing 101 days later on an uninhabited South Sea island. They were fed by flying fish landing on the boat every night, like manna from heaven. They had dangers from sharks. Whales scared them but never crashed into the boat. What a great book. They didn’t know each other but became a true team. They almost lost one at sea once but another wrapped the lifeline around him, jumped in and swam hard and got him.
“The world was simple-stars in the darkness. Whether it was 1947 B.C. or A.D. suddenly became of no significance. We lived, and that we felt with alert intensity. We realized that life had been full for men before the technical age also–in fact, fuller and richer in many ways than the life of modern man…”
Angatau – first island they saw but could not land on: “About three o’clock the forest of palms ashore opened, and through a wide gap we saw right into a blue glassy lagoon. But the surrounding reef lay as compact as ever, gnashing its blood-red teeth ominously in the foam. There was no passage, and the palm forest closed again as we plodded on along the island with the wind at our backs. Later the palm forest became thinner and thinner and gave us a view into the interior of the coral island. This consisted of the fairest, brightest salt-water lagoon, like a great silent tarn, surrounded by swaying coconut palms and shining bathing beaches. The seductive, green palm island itself formed a broad, soft ring of sand round the hospitable lagoon, and a second ring ran round the whole island-the rust-red sword which defended the gates of heaven.”
“I shall never forget that wade across the reef toward the heavenly palm island that grew larger as it came to meet us. When I reached the sunny sand beach, I slipped off my shoes and thrust my bare toes down into the warm, bone-dry sand. It was as though I enjoyed the sight of every footprint which dug itself into the virgin sand beach that led up to the palm trunks. Soon the palm tops closed over my head, and I went on, right in toward the center of the tiny island. Green coconuts hung under the palm tufts, and some luxuriant bushes were thickly covered with snow-white blossoms, which smelled so sweet and seductive that I felt quite faint.”
“…The voyage was over. We were all alive. We had run ashore on a small uninhabited South Sea Island. And what an island!”
“Purgatory was a bit damp,” said Bengt, “but heaven is more or less as I’d imagined it.”
“But none of us was in such a bad state that the sparkling clear lagoon did not entice him to a brisk swim before breakfast. It was an immense lagoon…But here, in the lee of the islands, the trade wind rustled peacefully in the fringed palm tops, making them stir and sway, while the lagoon lay like a motionless mirror below and reflected all their beauty. The bitter salt water was so pure and clear that gaily colored corals in nine feet of water seemed so near the surface that we thought we should cut our toes on them in swimming. And the water abounded in beautiful varieties of colorful fish. It was a marvelous world in which to disport oneself. The water was just cold enough to be refreshing, and the air was pleasantly warm and dry from the sun.
“Tiki had lived – that was the main thing. If he was in hell now, no one was any worse for it but himself; on the contrary, Tupuhoe suggested, perhaps it increased the chances of seeing him again.”
Now I want to go to Tahiti or Moorea!!!
“Thor Heyerdahl was a Norwegian explorer, adventurer, and writer. Born in 1914, he became famous for the 1947 Kon-Tiki expedition. He died in Italy in 2002.”
One of the crew members, Torstein Raaby, was a Norwegian who was a war hero in WWII. He was a Secret Intelligence Officer, and was responsible for undercover operations that helped the Royal Air Force and others. He was awarded the highest military honor that Norway awards for military gallantry. He was a radio operator on the Kon-Tiki.