Heyerdahl, Thor. Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific By Raft. Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1950.
I am still stuck on reading about the Pacific (islands and ocean) so I jumped this book up the list (was supposed to be read in August in honor of Ocean month or in June in honor of Monhegan becoming a plantation).
This was a lot of fun to read. I enjoyed everything about this adventure. Heyerdahl is a fabulous storyteller and really funny too. Although slightly inaccurate, Heyerdahl was convinced there was a connection between the peoples of South America and the population of the Polynesian (Easter/Tahitian) Islands. Building a raft made of the same materials the Incas would have used (balsa wood, bamboo and other natural elements), Heyerdahl and five companions spent 101 days crossing 4,300 nautical miles of the Pacific ocean in all kinds of weather to prove the point. The six men (five from Norway and one Swede) took turns cooking and steering and got along surprisingly well for a group of grown men stuck in the middle of the Pacific for almost four months. They endured raging seas, wild winds and all sorts of aquatic creatures that insisted on joining them on the raft. The episode with the squid jumping on board was especially disturbing.
The photography, while in 1940s black and white, is a helpful addition to the story. Imagining the size and heft of the raft would be difficult without it.
Favorite giggle moment: “Our neighborly intimacy with the sea was not fully realized by Torstein till he woke one morning and found a sardine on his pillow” (p 114).
Author fact: Heyerdahl was son to a master brewer and died of a brain tumor at age 87.
Book Trivia: Kon-Tiki was made into a documentary in 1951 for which it won an Academy Award. This is definitely going onto my “Must See” list.
BookLust Twist: From Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Oceania” (p 165). Reason I read it: trip to Hawaii coming soon.
~*LunaSea*~ 