The Wanderlust has taught me . . . it has whispered to my heart
Things all you stay-at-homes will never know.
…The Wanderlust has blest me . . . in a ragged blanket curled,
I’ve watched the gulf of Heaven foam with stars…

- Robert Service

Actions not words. - In 1947 Norwegian explorer & ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl had a theory that Polynesian islands could have been settled by people from South America in Pre-Columbian times.
A concept for him that had it’s genesis living on Fatu Hiva, an island in the Marquesas of French Polynesia. Where he had earlier lived with his young bride, wanting to escape civilization and live close to nature.

In the face of his critics and to prove the potential facts of his theory, he had to show that people would have been able to make the journey across the Pacific Ocean with the resources at hand. So he built a balsa wood raft in Peru, loaded it with a parrot and five fellow adventures and set themselves adrift. Forty three hundred miles later they came crashing onto a reef in the Tuamotu Islands, having successfully reached Polynesia after one hundred and one days of ocean travel.

Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific in a Raft

Kon-Tiki chronicles this journey from it’s inception to final arrival. Fraught with adventure as the crew drifts across the waves - far from rescue, encountering strange creatures from the ocean depths, wondering if their raft will become waterlogged and sink as their many detractors claim it will. It is an exciting read and an adventure classic, inspiration for any modern day adventurer proving that sometimes just going is really the only answer.

The documentary of this journey was awarded an Oscar in 1951.
Kon Tiki on DVD

Thor Heyerdahl Books for sale at the Adventure Book Auction page
See also:
Thor Heyerdahl & The Kon-Tiki Museum

2361: Thor Heyerdahl The Kon Tiki Expedition US $10.00 End Date: Sunday Nov-23-2008 19:00:00 PST Add to watch list