I finally finished reading The Voyage of the Kon-Tiki. It took me about a year. Not because it’s long, but because I kept putting it down and struggling to pick it back up again. Paul really wanted me to read his list of books that involved sailing the open ocean, so I was game to try to finish it, especially now that we are living onboard.
A brief summary: A wealthy Norwegian explorer has a theory that Ancient White Men sailed from the Americas to the Polynesian islands using only balsa wood rafts and decides to prove his theory by doing it himself. 5 other dummies and 1 parrot join him in his adventure, punching a lot of sharks and confusing a lot of Ham Radio Operators worldwide along the way. Spoiler alert- although they make it to Polynesia, they had never actually learned to steer their raft and crash it into a reef, barely surviving. They are rescued by locals and brought to Tahiti where they sail on a tanker back to America.
My problems with Kon-Tiki aside (racism, cultural exceptionalism, othering), it was a book about people doing something that they believed had been done before, and thus could be done again, even though it was extraordinary. It reminded me of a quote from Peregrina: Love and Death in Mexico, “That which was can never cease having been”. The idea that something can be done so often leads others to try as well, and that is what we have done here.
Although Thor Heyerdahl was certainly brave, I think a large amount of his success (if what he did can actually be called a success), was overwhelming luck. I wonder which mattered more- the bravery or the luck, and I suppose that it must fall somewhere between the two- which is somewhere that we have landed in this journey of our own. A mix of bravery (usually on Paul’s side), a mix of luck (usually mine), and we find ourselves at anchor and 13 months in to a voyage that could bring us to any seas in the world.
I suggest reading Kon-Tiki if you like Hemingway, visiting the Adventure Club, or are a sailor. Another spoiler alert- it does not pass the Bechtel Test. Enjoy
-Lindsay
TIBURON MARINO 