Friday, May 23, 2008

Kon-Tiki




"Borders? I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people." - Thor Heyerdahl
Then we strolled over to the Kon-Tiki museum where we learned about the great Norwegian scientist and explorer, Thor Heyerdahl. Some of his life’s greatest accomplishments included building boats out of papyrus and successfully sailing them across major oceans to prove that the New World was likely influenced by contact from the Old World. He proved this by sailing his Ra 2 boat from Morocco to Barbados and later, he sailed Kon-Tiki, which was a raft made of balsa leaves, from Peru to Polynesia using nothing more than the wind and the ocean currents. He also did a lot of work to raise awareness about the increasing pollution levels he was witnessing in the oceans and went on to win an Oscar for his documentary on the Kon-Tiki expedition. We all shook our heads in utter disbelief to think that a crew of men survived 101 days on the ocean on such anemic looking water crafts.

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