Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft Author: Thor Heyerdahl | Language: English | ISBN:
B00I53DRR2 | Format: EPUB
Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific by Raft Description
“Am going to cross Pacific on a wooden raft to support a theory that the South Sea islands were peopled from Peru. Will you come? …Reply at once.” That is how six brave and inquisitive men came to seek a dangerous path to test a scientific theory. On a primitive raft made of forty-foot balsa logs and named “Kon-Tiki” in honor of a legendary sun king, Heyerdahl and five companions deliberately risked their lives to show that the ancient Peruvians could have made the 4,300-mile voyage to the Polynesian islands on a similar craft.
On every page of this true chronicle—from the actual building of the raft through all the dangerous and comic adventures on the sea, to the spectacular crash-landing and the native islanders’ hula dances—each reader will find a wholesome and spellbinding escape from the twenty-first century.
- File Size: 23929 KB
- Print Length: 304 pages
- Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing (December 24, 2013)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00I53DRR2
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #26,171 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #4
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > Historical Study > Historiography - #6
in Books > History > Historical Study & Educational Resources > Historiography - #7
in Books > History > Australia & Oceania > Australia
- #4
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > History > Historical Study > Historiography - #6
in Books > History > Historical Study & Educational Resources > Historiography - #7
in Books > History > Australia & Oceania > Australia
With each passing year, less and less of the world remains to be discovered. With GPS and satellite imagery, our oceans have been charted and the jungles surveyed. Our world is no longer a mystery. No longer do we have maps fringed by threatening pictures of dragons and sea monsters warning sailors and explorers of the unknown that lies out there. But when I picked up this book I was taken back fifty years in time. Back to a time when men ate meat raw and walked around with clubs hunting big game. OK, perhaps I am getting carried away.
Thor Heyerdahl believed the Polynesian islands were inhabited by sea faring travellers from Peru. But his thesis on this topic was ridiculed because no one would believe that the pacific ocean could be crossed by a flimsy raft made of balsa wood and bamboo. So Heyerdahl decides to prove IT IS possible by building a raft using exactly the same materials the ancient Peruvians used and sailing off the coast of Peru hoping to eventually reach Polynesia.
Nearly every step off his journey was filled with nay sayers who said he was crazy and "experts" who variably told him he was going to die, the raft was going to break apart, or the balsa wood would absorb the sea water and sink. He ignored them all. When they told him balsa trees of the size he needed no longer existed along the coast, he took a jeep deep into the jungles through flooded roads and GOT his trees. Which then they floated down to the ocean in a river.
Heyerdahl is keenly aware of his surroundings and describes his voyage vividly and in simple prose. I could smell the sea breeze and feel the spray of the ocean. It was like taking a mini vacation every time I sat down with this book. You'll swim with whale sharks and get caught in ferocious storms.
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