What is Heyerdahl's tour? Thor Heyerdahl's discoveries and short biography. Travels of Thor Heyerdahl: Kon-Tiki Expedition

Biography and episodes of life Thor Heyerdahl. When born and died Heyerdahl, memorable places and dates of important events in his life. Traveler Quotes, Photo and video.

Years of life of Thor Heyerdahl:

born October 6, 1941, died April 18, 2002

Epitaph

Intelligence, honor and beauty,
Greatness of soul and heart,
Kindness and courage -
Everything is in your image.

Biography

As a child, he was terribly afraid of water. If anyone had told him then that one day he would be sailing in the Pacific Ocean on a wooden raft, Tur would have been very surprised. Nevertheless, this is what happened. The biography of Thor Heyerdahl is the story of a traveler, scientist, writer and, finally, a man who never deviated from his high principles. “I don’t seek adventure for adventure’s sake,” Heyerdahl once said. - The fullness of life is not necessarily associated with overcoming the elements - the work of thought, the achievement of a humane goal decorate it more strongly. “I am organically incapable of considering people who lived thousands of years before us as inferior to me, and I am disgusted when I come across such often even subconscious disdain for those who lived before us and did not master our technology.” He took an oath of allegiance to his goals and did not abandon it throughout his life.

Thor Heyerdahl was born in Norway. Since childhood, the boy was engrossed in books on anthropology - his mother worked in the anthropological museum. After school, the young man graduated from the Faculty of Natural Geography at the University of Oslo and, together with his young wife, went on his first trip - to the Marquesas Islands, where the couple decided to try to live in pristine nature. But after a while they needed medical help and had to leave the islands. Nevertheless, it was then that Thor realized what he would do with his future life, and this predetermined Heyerdahl’s future biography as a brave traveler, scientist, writer, anthropologist and humanist.

After the war, he again continued his research activities and went on an expedition that made him famous throughout the world - “Kon-Tiki”. The goal of Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki expedition was to prove that South American Indians could reach Polynesia by sea. Upon his return, Heyerdahl published the book “The Voyage to Kon-Tiki”, which was translated into 67 languages, and documentary about the journey of Thor Heyerdahl, filmed by him on the expedition, received an Oscar. After such success, Heyerdahl was unstoppable - he equipped one expedition after another: to the Galapagos Islands, to Easter Island, Maldives and many more etc. All this time, Tur created scientific works, published books about his hypotheses and expeditions. And in 2001, traveler Heyerdahl arrived in Russia to confirm his next assumption that the Norwegians came from the Sea of ​​Azov. The book “In Search of Odin” was written about the first stage of the expedition, but the second stage, alas, was not destined to happen due to the death of Heyerdahl.

Thor Heyerdahl's death occurred on April 18, 2002. Eight days later Heyerdahl's funeral took place. The traveler died on his estate, and Thor Heyerdahl’s grave is also located there. Heyerdahl's cause of death was a brain tumor. While the traveler was still alive, a monument to Heyerdahl was erected in his homeland. The frigate Thor Heyerdahl, which entered the Norwegian Navy on January 18, 2011, was named in memory of Heyerdahl. In Heyerdahl's house today there is his museum, which contains ships and objects used by the traveler during expeditions - including the Kon-Tiki raft, Heyerdahl's boats "Ra" and "Ra II" and others.

Life line

October 6, 1914 Thor Heyerdahl's date of birth.
1933 Admission to the University of Oslo at the Faculty of Natural Geography.
December 1936 Marriage to Liv Cucheron-Thorpe.
1937 A trip to the island of Fatu Hiva, where Thor Heyerdahl and his wife spent a year away from civilization.
1947 The Kon-Tiki expedition across the Pacific Ocean.
1949 Divorce from Liv, marriage to Yvonne Dedekam-Simonsen.
1951 Receiving an Oscar for a documentary film about the Kon-Tiki expedition.
1955-1956 Expedition to Easter Island.
1958 Publication of the book “Aku-aku” about the expedition to Easter Island.
1969-1970 Traveling on boats "Ra" and "Ra-II".
1977 Expedition on the boat "Tigris".
1983-1984 Research in the Maldives.
1989 Release of the book “Easter Island: A Mystery Solved.”
1991 Exploring the pyramids of Guimar on the island of Tenerife, entering into a third marriage - with Jacqueline Beer.
1994 Opening of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer by Thor Heyerdahl.
April 18, 2002 Date of death of Thor Heyerdahl.
April 26, 2002 Funeral of Thor Heyerdahl.

Memorable places

1. The city of Larvik in Norway, where Thor Heyerdahl was born.
2. University of Oslo, where Thor Heyerdahl studied.
3. Heyerdahl's house (Colla Mikeri estate) in Italy, where he died and where Thor Heyerdahl is buried.
4. Monument to Heyerdahl in Norway.
5. Kon-Tiki Museum in Norway, dedicated to the activities of Thor Heyerdahl.

Episodes of life

Heyerdahl specially selected such a crew for expeditions so that it would include representatives of different nationalities, races, religious and political beliefs. Thus, Tour wanted to show that on a small floating ship a variety of people can live fruitfully and cooperate in the world.

Thor Heyerdahl hated any form of violence; he was a true humanist. This attitude towards people endeared him to anyone who knew him, from the Cuban commander to the king of Norway. In 1954, Tour visited Easter Island, where local residents are very wary of strangers. They loved Tur so much that they even showed him their ancestral caves and allowed him to take from there whatever he wanted as a souvenir. Exhibits from Easter Island, donated by the inhabitants of the island of Turu, are today kept in the Heyerdahl Museum.

Testaments

"I'm not afraid of death. But I hate losing my life."

“Man is a slave to a small mechanism that measures time and repeats: it’s time to do this and that, hurry up, don’t hesitate.”

Documentary about Thor Heyerdahl's 1947 expedition

Condolences

“I express my most sincere condolences on the death of the great son of Norway, humanist, great friend of our country, Thor Heyerdahl. His outstanding studies of the marine environment, innovative works in the field of ethnography and archeology are rightfully included in the golden fund of world science.”
Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation

“With the passing of the world-famous ethnographer and archaeologist Thor Heyerdahl, Norway has lost an original and outstanding explorer.”
Kjell Magne Bundevik, former Prime Minister of Norway

“Thur Heyerdahl and his work are an inspiring example for young people who want to find their own path to knowledge and understanding.”
Jens Stoltenberg, member of the Norwegian Parliament, former Prime Minister of Norway

“Scientists hide behind the term
to hide from people that they don’t know the answer..."

Thor Heyerdahl

Norwegian geographer (trained), traveler and anthropologist.

His mother worked in an anthropological museum, and young Tour created a small museum in the house, in which the main exhibit was a viper...

In the 30s Thor Heyerdahl he and his wife spent more than a year in almost primitive conditions on the Marquesas Islands.

In 1947 Thor Heyerdahl and further 5 his colleagues, testing the scientific hypothesis about the possibility of ancient navigators conquering ocean spaces, sailed 6920 kilometers across the Pacific Ocean on the Kon-Tiki raft. Thus, indirect evidence was obtained about the possibility of ancient contacts between South America and Polynesia...

In 1955-1956 Thor Heyerdahl organized a Norwegian archaeological expedition to Easter Island to conduct experiments to study the technology of making and installing the famous moai statues.

“Then Heyerdahl, faithful to the idea of ​​​​the important role of long-distance migrations, decided to prove that the Egyptians could reach South America and take part in the formation of the pre-Columbian civilizations of America - the Incas and Aztecs. He decided to cross the Atlantic on the papyrus boat "Ra" (with the technology of the ancient Egyptians) from North Africa. The first attempt in 1969, after covering 4,500 km, ended in crash, the second the next year was a success - “Ra II”, after 57 days of travel, sailed to Barbados in the West Indies. So Heyerdahl also had a hand in reviving Elliot Smith's idea. At this time, Heyerdahl became interested in the history of the Old World. In 1969, he and half of his Ra team, between both trips to Ra, visited me on an expedition near Novocherkassk, where I excavated mounds with pit burials, which Gimbutas then declared to be Proto-Indo-European. Tur wanted to look at the Proto-Indo-Europeans with his own eyes. According to my ideas, he saw only Aryans (proto-Indo-Iranians). But the local authorities greeted him with pomp; the head of the region was very worried and began his welcoming speech with the words: “Dear Mr. Her Tuyerdahl!” Such mistakes are contagious. All subsequent speakers paused before the name and pronounced it with increased clarity: "Tour!!! Heyerdahl!!!" In the 1970s on the reed boat Tigris, Heyerdahl set off on a 9,980-kilometer journey along the rivers from Iraq to Indian Ocean, to prove that the Sumerians could have walked this route 5000 years ago. The war in Ethiopia prevented the completion of this expedition. All of Thor Heyerdahl's publications are extremely romantic and are read avidly and with admiration. But, while proving by their very implementation that such journeys were possible, they do not prove one thing - that these expeditions actually took place. To believe that a statement of possibility is a sufficient historical explanation and justification is possibilism, which most historians reject as logically erroneous. Only one book by Heyerdahl, published in 1952, presents the evidence he collected on 821 pages. This is American Indians in the Pacific. The theory behind the Kon-Tiki expedition." Reviews of scientists about this book are as soberingly critical as the responses to his other books are full of admiration. Critics find in it only random coincidences of words, individual similarities of things despite the complete divergence of the entire culture, legends that can be interpreted in different ways. Conflicting facts are omitted, the material is poorly organized, and there is a lot of repetition. Everything gives the impression of rough notes thrown together and published. As for the content of the book (and criticism), currents make it easier to swim from the Asian continent to the east than from America to the west, and indeed, food plants taro, coconut, banana, breadfruit, as well as animals, penetrated into Oceania from Asia - domestic pig. Sweet potatoes and squash may indeed indicate contact between Polynesia and the Americas, but such contact does not necessarily involve migration.”

Klein L.S. , History of archaeological thought in 2 volumes, Volume 1, St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg State University Publishing House, 2011, p. 572-573.

“On the Pacific island of Easter there are cyclopean statues that, it would seem, could not have been erected by the primitive tribe inhabiting the island in our days. Can we hypothesize that these statues were erected by aliens from another planet? Of course we can. However, being within the framework of a rational approach, we have the right to accept such an explanation only after all the simpler - “earthly” - hypotheses have been exhausted. Thor Heyerdahl, who made a successful attempt to install the Easter statue using only those means that are now at the disposal of the local aborigines, acted strictly within the framework "Occam's razors", although I probably haven’t thought about it.”

Eskov K.Yu., Amazing paleontology: the history of the Earth and life on it, Publishing House NC ENAS, 2007, p. 20.

Legends have already been created about this journey and even a full-length feature film has been made. The journey to Kon-Tiki became Thor Heyerdahl's most famous journey. And he will be remembered for many, many years to come, and they will continue to admire the courage and fearlessness of these romantics, led by Thor Heyerdahl.

The journey on the Kon-Tiki raft inspired many people to take courageous actions and became business card Thor Heyerdahl. It was this passage across the Pacific Ocean that brought him world fame, and only then all his other not-so-wonderful adventures.

The Kon-Tiki is a raft made from 9 balsa. Their length is from 10 to 14 meters. These trees were cut down in the jungles of Ecuador and brought to its coast. Kon-Tiki had a sharp nose, which improved his qualities and increased his speed.

Construction of a raft

Thor Heyerdahl and his team originally planned to find and cut down balsa trees on the coast of Ecuador, as the Incas did, but they found nothing. I had to fly inland and cut down these trees there. They cut down 9 of the most big trees, which they could only find and removed the bark from them the way the Indians do. They rafted the logs all the way to Lima, the capital of Peru, where they began their trek.

Right there they began building their raft. The Peruvian authorities provided them with a dock in the port and the workers of this dock, who did the main work. Large balsa logs were the basis of the raft; on top they placed 9 more balsa logs, but of a smaller diameter. These logs became the basis of the deck, which they covered with bamboo mats. A small hut was also built from bamboo in the center of the deck. The roof of the hut is made of banana leaves.

The ship was assembled without a single nail and all its parts were tied with ropes. The ancient inhabitants of these places, the Incas, built their rafts in exactly the same way. The ship's mast and rudder were made of mangrove wood, which sinks in water.

The authorities did not believe that the raft would be able to reach the islands of Polynesia, and even made bets among themselves. But the people who had gathered before the departure tried to get autographs from the team, in the hope that the raft would still be able to reach its intended goal.

The raft was named Kon-Tiki, in honor of the sun god of the ancient Incas. In those days, people worshiped this god and carved his head in various statues. An image of one of these statues appeared on the sail of this ship. Legend has it that the tortured people eventually drove Kon-Tiki west, and he and his people sailed overseas. Among the Polynesians there were legends about the great Tiki, who sailed with his people from the east. Thor Heyerdahl and his team decided to sail in the footsteps of this ancient god.

On April 28, 1947, the Kon-Tiki raft sailed from the Peruvian port of Callao. To ensure that the vessel did not interfere with port traffic, a naval tug pulled the raft 50 miles, all the way to the Humboldt Current. Then Thor Heyerdahl's team proceeded independently.

Thor Heyerdahl(1914—2002) - expedition leader (3rd in the photo)

Eric Hesselberg(1914-1972) - navigator and artist. He painted an image of the god Kon-Tiki on the sail of the ship (4th in the photo)

Bengt Danielsson(1921-1997) - acted as cook. He was interested in the theory of migration. He also helped as a translator, since he was the only one of the crew who spoke Spanish (2nd in the photo)

Knut Haugland(1917—2009) - radio operator (pictured 1st)

Thorstein Robue(1918—1964) - second radio operator (5th in the photo)

Hermann Watzinger(1916—1986) - engineer of technical measurements. During the expedition he conducted meteorological and hydrological observations (6th in the photo)

The seventh member of the expedition was the South American parrot Lolita.

On my way

Flying fish and other seafood constantly landed on board the ship. They had no shortage of seafood - there was an open ocean behind them. Dolphin fish were often encountered. We also collected plankton by pulling a fine mesh behind us.

They cooked food on a primus stove, which they took with them and placed in a wooden box. Once the cook dozed off and the bamboo wall of the hut caught fire, but they could easily put it out. Food, as well as various equipment, was stored below deck, between bamboo mats and a balsa base. Everything needed was packed in cardboard boxes filled with asphalt (bitumen) to prevent moisture from getting into them.

Part of the experiment was that two crew members did not eat fish or other seafood - there was a special diet for them that had to be tried. They were fed American rations designed for the military, but had not yet been tried.

If they wanted fresh fish, all they had to do was throw the hook in 20 minutes before eating - and they were guaranteed to have fish for dinner!

They also tried drinking lymph fluid obtained from fish glands. Thus, they wanted to see the possibility of extracting drinking water in the open sea. The Kon-Tiki crew took with them a little less than a ton of fresh water, which was replenished from time to time by tropical rains. To maintain salt balance, they sometimes mixed fresh water from the sea.

The team also had to observe larger representatives of the ichthyofauna of the Pacific Ocean. They saw whales and caught sharks, and once the largest of the sharks, the whale shark, came close to them. They watched it for so long that one participant lost his nerve and stuck a spear into it, after which the shark disappeared. Sometimes they had to keep up to 9 sharks on deck.

There were also cases when sharks almost bit the crew members, but, fortunately, everything happened without any injuries.

They took with them a rubber boat, from which they filmed some types of the raft, and also, if suddenly someone wanted to be away from the team, alone, he could get into this boat and swim in it, tied to the raft.

Before they reached the halfway point, they experienced two large storms, one of which lasted 5 days. During the storm they didn't even have time to take pictures. During the storm, the sail and steering oar were broken, and the logs came apart. The deck was destroyed, but they managed to repair it. They also lost their parrot.

Kon-Tiki walked at an average speed of 80 km per day; their speed record was one day, during which they covered 130 km. The crew members constantly had to check the components underwater; this pleasure was not pleasant, since there was a possibility of a shark attack. Although the sharks did not attack the raft until at least a drop of blood fell into the water.

One day Watzinger fell into the water, as a result of which he could not catch up with the raft, despite the fact that it was swimming very fast. Haugland jumped after him and swam to him. To safely dive underwater, they built a diver's basket, with which they could hide from sharks. When the sharks came close, the diver had to hide in this basket, after which the crew would pull him on board.

Finally they saw a sign that land was approaching - a frigate was flying next to them. They were approaching the coral archipelago of the Tuamotu. These were the islands French Polynesia. It was necessary to keep your eyes open, as there was a high probability of stumbling upon coral reefs. The islands are so low that they can only be seen from a distance when the surf hits the reefs.

On the 93rd day, an observer from the mast discovered land - it was one of the islands south seas on which they grew up. They walked past him. Then after 4 days they saw a boat local residents, they swam up to them and began to help the Kon-Tiki team row. Afterwards the team went even further and on day 101 they saw the earth for the 3rd time.

Somehow, struggling with the waves and the ocean, they swam to the coral atoll of Raroia and climbed ashore. The logs of the raft held up. They proved that it is quite possible to sail from South America to the islands of Polynesia on a homemade raft made of balsa logs. They arrived on the island on August 7, 1947. They traveled a distance of 6980 km.

They dragged their belongings to this uninhabited island and lived there for a week until they saw a boat approaching with locals.

The Kon-Tiki raft is now kept in the museum of the same name in Oslo. Thor Heyerdahl and his team proved the theoretical possibility of crossing Pacific Ocean South American Indians. They also proved that they could not swim across the ocean themselves and then rise: because of the sea water, the nuts become unsuitable for germination, and therefore, people brought them to the islands.

On the islands of Polynesia they planted seeds of various plants, as a sign that the Indians who sailed here many years ago planted various plants.

The balsa logs survived the entire route and after that they still held up well in the water due to the fact that they were damp; the liquid inside the trees acted as impregnation and did not allow the sea water to absorb deeper. The ancient Incas built their rafts in exactly the same way.

One riddle prompted him to come up with the idea of ​​such a journey. Once upon a time, the leader of the ancient Inca tribe Kon-Tiki was defeated in a war and retreated with his warriors to the ocean shore. And now there was nowhere to retreat further. Then Kon-Tiki and his companions built rafts, sailed into the ocean and never returned. And no one saw them again. Where did they disappear to?
Heyerdahl believed that Kon-Tiki sailed and sailed west on rafts, and eventually landed on Easter Island, and his warriors settled from there on all the other islands. But how to prove this? Only by repeating this whole thing yourself sea ​​route.
Heyerdahl gathered a team, built a raft and set off on a journey to exactly repeat the path of the Inca leader.

After I read Heyerdahl’s book “The Voyage of the Kon-Tiki” (I couldn’t stop! I didn’t even think that it would be so interesting to read!), I really wanted to tell Osya about this journey. And we began to play with him, imagining that we ourselves were facing a dangerous journey across the ocean. I wanted to talk with Osya about Heyerdahl's journey, but at the same time I did not want to give out a lot of information in bulk. Therefore, we first discussed how Osya imagined such a journey, and then I told some interesting details about the adventures of Heyerdahl and his companions.

What will we build the raft from?
Thor Heyerdahl set sail on a raft made of balsa wood - this is the lightest wood in the world! It was not so easy to find a place where these trees still grow. They had to climb far into the mountains and from there float logs down the river.

So, the raft was ready, and there was not a single nail in it! Above nine mighty balsa logs, tied with ropes, rose a mast with a giant (27 square meters) rectangular sail. The deck was covered with bamboo. In the middle of the raft stood a small but fairly strong hut with a roof made of banana leaves.

raft layout

Raft in a museum in Oslo

Still from the movie "Kon-Tiki"

Crew members had to check the condition of the ropes underwater from time to time. It was very dangerous because you could get into the shark's mouth.

What will we eat?
(We need to learn how to fish)
“On the way, we had to find out whether it was possible to fish in the open sea and collect rainwater. I believed that we should have taken with us the front-line rations that we were given during the war.”

Heyerdahl knew that the Aborigines once easily got by on dried sweet potatoes and dried meat during voyages. But if the food supply suddenly spoiled, six people could simply die of hunger. Therefore, they took with them many boxes of canned food, covered with a thin layer of asphalt on top to prevent moisture from getting inside. Their supply should have been enough for four months. In addition, on the raft there were supplies of fruits, coconuts, and a lot of fishing gear: they hoped that they would be able to catch fish, and everything worked out! Moreover, often they didn’t even have to catch anything; the fish itself jumped onto their raft. Every morning, Heyerdahl and his companions found dozens of flying fish on the deck, which were immediately sent to the frying pan (there was a small primus stove on the raft, which was located in a wooden box).

Once the cook dozed off and did not notice how the bamboo wall of the hut caught fire, but, fortunately, everything worked out and it was quickly put out.
The ocean was teeming with tuna, mackerel and bonito fish and often it was enough just to throw a hook into the water. Having adapted to sea fishing, the friends even began to catch sharks, sometimes dragging them onto a raft simply by grabbing their rough tail.

It also happened that they had to keep up to 9 sharks on deck.

What are we going to drink?
“In the tropics, on hot days, you can pour so much water into yourself that it will flow back out of your mouth, but you will still feel thirsty. The body does not need water, but, oddly enough, salt.”
Fifty containers with 1,100 liters of spring water were loaded aboard the Kon-Tiki before sailing to the Polynesian islands. This supply would easily last for several months of travel. But after a few weeks, the travelers felt that the water had spoiled and tasted bad. Heyerdahl often thought about how his Indian predecessors coped with thirst. They stored water in dried hollowed out gourds and thick bamboo trunks. They drank water from the holes, after which they plugged the holes with strong plugs. In addition, the aborigines had secrets with which they survived even when the water dried up. They “squeezed” the caught fish, resulting in the release of a liquid that could quench their thirst.
Travelers mixed fresh water with sea water, and soon learned to drink sea water itself - when they accidentally learned that oat grains almost completely destroy its unpleasant salty taste.

Is there a way to get in touch?
There was a small radio station on the raft, with the help of which the expedition made contact.

What ocean dangers await us?

High waves crashing onto the raft. What saved us was that the water easily drained into the cracks between the logs.
- impossible control of the raft and submission to the current. Pilot and steering oar. The stern of the ship should always be exposed to the wind.

Sharks
- at night you need to get attached
- how to land on the shore?
“Many ships in the Tuamotu archipelago area were trapped by underwater reefs and smashed to pieces on the coral. We couldn’t see the insidious trap from the sea.”
After 90 days of travel, Heyerdahl's team began to feel the approach of earth. Schools of birds appeared in the sky, purposefully flying to the west. The raft was carried straight to one of the many islands of Polynesia - the islet of Puka Puka in the Tuamotu archipelago. But the current carried the raft past the piece of land and dragged it further.
A few days later the raft sailed to Raroia Atoll. Here, a whole obstacle course awaited the crew: to get to the ground, the team had to find a passage through a wall of razor-sharp coral reefs. Exhausted trying to break through the reef, the travelers decided to “ride” it at high tide. Holding tightly to the raft, they survived several terrible hours under the blows of powerful waves. After which they managed to cross the reef and wade to the sandy shore. Everything worked out! Ahead of the team were dances with the natives, festive ceremonies in Tahiti and a ceremonial return home - already on a passenger ship.

How to calculate how fast a raft is moving?
They threw a piece of balsa into the water and measured the time it took for the raft to overtake this piece. (By the way, this could be a good problem for those children who already know how to calculate speed if time and distance are known)

What should we do with the discoveries that lie ahead of us? How to remember all the details and interesting details?

You need to keep a ship's log and record all observations there, sketch new species of fish and other sea creatures.

Here are examples of fish entries in logbook, which was conducted by Heyerdahl:
“11/V. This evening, when we were having dinner on the edge of the raft, some huge sea animal surfaced next to us twice. It frothed all the water and disappeared. We could not understand what it was.”

"6/VI. Herman saw a fat fish with a dark back and a white belly, it had a thin tail and many spines. It jumped out of the water to the right of the raft."

I told Osa who Heyerdahl's team came across during their voyage: shark, bonito, tuna, flying fish, swordfish, whale, pilot fish, coryphaena, flying squid.

Thorstein once showed a simply incredible trick - such things only happen in the stories of boastful fishermen. We were sitting and having lunch, suddenly he put his fork aside, dipped his hand into the water, and before we had time to look back, the sea began to boil and a hefty dorado. Everything was explained simply: Thorsten caught a piece of fishing line, and at the other end there was a slightly puzzled coryphaena that Eric had missed the day before.
This fish has a magnificent color: in the water the scales shimmered blue-green, the fins sparkled with gold. And when you pull her onto the raft, an amazing transformation takes place before your eyes. When falling asleep, the fish first became gray with black spots, then completely silvery-white. But after four to five minutes it gradually returned to its original color. And in water, the coryphen sometimes changes color, like a chameleon. You notice some “new” copper-colored fish, take a closer look, and this is our old friend - the coryphaena.

Early in the morning we found a very small squid on the roof of the cabin. Puzzle! He himself did not fit in there, this can be seen from the fact that there were no ink stains anywhere, only a black ring around the “baby” himself. It wasn't dropped on the roof by a seabird, otherwise we would have found beak or claw marks. Apparently, he was thrown there by a wave, although none of the night watch could remember such a hefty wave.
It is known that a squid moves according to the same principle as a jet plane. With enormous force, it pushes water through a channel inside the body and swims backwards with quick jerks, and the tentacles collected in a cluster stretch behind the head, making the squid streamlined. Two round, fleshy folds of skin on the sides act as rudders and as oars when the squid is not in a hurry.

If our small kerosene lantern stood on the deck at night, its light would attract guests - flying fish, big and small, rushed over the raft. They crash into a cabin or sail and splash onto the deck. After all, they can only accelerate and take off in the water, so they lie there, helplessly flapping their long pectoral fins, like big-eyed herrings. The fish flew quite quickly. The way he pokes his muzzle right into your face was very sensitive. In the morning we fried our catch. The cook's first duty when he got up in the morning was to walk along the deck and collect all the flying fish that had landed during the night. Usually there were six to eight of them, and once we counted twenty-six fatty fish. Knut was simply upset when the flying fish landed in his hand, and not directly on the frying pan in which he had just melted the lard.

The sky was covered with clouds and the night was pitch black, so Thorstein placed a kerosene lantern near his head so that the watchmen could see where to step when entering and leaving. About four o'clock Thorstein woke up because the lantern had fallen and something cold and slippery was lashing his ears. A flying fish, he decided, and began to fumble around to grab it and throw it overboard. He came across something wet, long, and snake-like, and he pulled his hand away as if he had been burned. While Thorstein was busy with the extinguished lantern, the invisible night visitor evaded and crawled towards Herman. Herman jumped up, and then I woke up, and the giant squid that at night floats to the surface in these latitudes immediately came to mind. Finally the lantern came on and we saw Herman: he was sitting with a triumphant look, clutching in his hand a thin fish wriggling like an eel. It was about a meter long, snake-like body, huge black eyes; long predatory jaws are studded with sharp teeth that could fold back, allowing food to pass through.
All this fuss woke up Bengt, and we brought a lantern and a long fish to his eyes. He sat up in his sleeping bag and said sleepily:
- Nonsense, such animals don’t exist.
After which he turned over and calmly fell asleep again.
Bengt was almost right. It later turned out that the six of us were the first to see a snake fish - snake mackerel - alive. Until then, on the coast of South America and on Galapagos Islands Only her skeletons were found, and even then only a few times.

It was whale shark, the largest of the sharks and generally the largest modern fish. It is very rare. The monster was so huge that when he decided to dive under the raft, we saw his head on one side and his tail on the other. His muzzle was so ridiculous and stupid that we simply could not help laughing, although we understood perfectly well: if this mountain of muscles decided to attack us, all that would remain of our balsa logs would be splinters. The whale shark continued to circle right under the raft, and we wondered how it would end. Here again she slid under the oar and lifted it with her back. We stood ready along the sides, holding hand harpoons that looked like toothpicks in front of this colossus. It seemed that the shark had no intention of leaving us; it followed us like a faithful dog, staying close to the raft.

Map.
The Kon-Tiki sailed from the Peruvian port of Callao on April 28, 1947. And on August 7, the raft reached the end point of its journey - Raroia Atoll in the Tuamotu archipelago. In this way, about 3,770 miles (or 6,980 km) were covered in 101 days.

The article I used to write this post is http://redigo.ru/article/240
Many of the photographs are from Heyerdahl's book.

I watched the 2012 film “Kon-Tiki” and showed several excerpts from it to Osya. Just in case, I’ll write excerpts here in time, in case someone else wants to show them to their children. I didn’t show the whole film, especially since there is an unpleasant scene when they rip open the shark’s belly, and the parrot is also eaten by the shark, although this was not in the book, and I decided that the information that the bird was carried away by a wave - enough for the Axis.
So, I showed the episodes:
from 37 min. 40 each - with crab
from 42:36 to 49:50 - with a storm
from 51:02 to 53:10 - from whale shark, which floats beautifully around the raft
from hour to hour:02 - about luminous water
from hour: 24 to hour: 26 - how they saw the bird and tried to land on the shore
and at the end - how they hugged and rejoiced.

And of course, you can watch the film that Heyerdahl himself directed, and which eventually won an Oscar:

And now about the game: first of all, we made a raft - for this we turned our dining table upside down, tied ropes to it, and hung craft paper on the ropes

Name: Thor Heyerdahl

Age: 87 years old

Place of Birth: Larvik, Vestfold, Norway

A place of death: Alassio, Liguria, Italy

Activity: Norwegian archaeologist, traveler and writer

Family status: was married to Jacqueline Beer

Thor Heyerdahl - biography

The scientific world will never stop arguing about the emergence of great civilizations, since one theory often refutes another. Thor Heyerdahl preferred not to argue, but to act. According to ancient “instructions,” he built a ship and sailed it thousands of miles across the ocean. If he reached the desired shore, the theory was considered proven.

Thor Heyerdahl - studies

Upon graduating from school, young Tur had already determined his future - he would be a zoologist. The boy’s mother worked in an anthropological museum, and he himself assembled a mini-zoo at home, with a viper as the main “exhibit.” Admission to the Faculty of Natural Geography at the University of Oslo in 1933 became a logical continuation of his dream...

Thor Heyerdahl - on the tropical islands

Already finishing his studies, student Heyerdahl went to the remote islands of Polynesia. There he hoped to find out the origin of certain species of fauna. His young wife Liv was with him. Having passed Tahiti, the couple landed on desert island Fatu Hiva. He reminded them of the Garden of Eden, in which they felt like Adam and Eve. That's just neighboring islands were inhabited by cannibal natives, and Tour did not part with a gun.

However, the trouble came not from savages, but from a tropical infection. The couple's legs became covered with ulcers, and the couple was forced to seek treatment. medical care on the island of Hiva Oa. Here Heyerdahl met compatriot Henry Lee, and he told him about stone statues in the local jungle. No one knew where they came from. Lee also said that there are similar statues in Colombia, 7 thousand (!) kilometers to the west.

The tour was intrigued: how could this happen? The most logical explanation is that people from South America simply sailed to the Marquesas Islands. The guess was strengthened by the fact that the islanders called one of the idols Tiki, like the god of the Incas. But the scientific world considered the hypothesis complete nonsense. Well, the savages could not build a ship capable of crossing the ocean! In search of evidence for his theory, 25-year-old Heyerdahl came to British Columbia (Canada).

He expected to find legends about seafarers among the local Indians. However, having traveled all over western Canada, I have not heard a single legend about Indian sailors. But he learned something else, and soon presented to the public an article about contacts between the peoples of the Pacific Islands and the American Indians. In it, the Norwegian substantiated his conclusion that the ancestors of the Polynesians arrived precisely from the north, through Hawaii.

There, in Canada, Heyerdahl was caught by the Second World War. Being a patriot, Tur enlisted in the Allied army and ended up in a sabotage radio school in Britain. As part of a sea convoy, his unit was transferred to Murmansk, from where the fighters were supposed to go to the Norwegian Kirkenes.

Having studied Heyerdahl's documents, the NKVD officer was surprised: on the shoulders of the soldier, who was listed as a sergeant, there were lieutenant stars. Disorder! Without listening to explanations, the “special officer” sent the suspicious blond back to London. And the unit in which Tur served was destroyed by the Nazis during the first mission... Subsequently, the researcher mentally thanked the meticulous Russian, who unwittingly saved his life.

After the war, Heyerdahl came to New York, where he presented his work on the resettlement of American Indians to the Polynesian islands. As he foresaw, none of the academicians paid attention to his article. True, someone advised me to prove by my own example the possibility of such a journey. Considering that Heyerdahl, having miraculously avoided drowning as a child, was terrified of water, he had to refuse. Instead, the Tour began to prepare for sailing.

On April 28, 1947, Heyerdahl and five companions departed on a raft from the Peruvian port of Callao and headed for Polynesia. The raft consisted of balsa wood logs and was called “Kon-Tiki” - named after the hero of Polynesian legends. The design was identical to those built in ancient times. After 101 days of exhausting sailing, covering 4,300 nautical miles, the travelers reached the Tuamotu Islands. A theory that no one took seriously has been proven.

One of the academicians tried to devalue Tour's achievement, saying that even before him it was known about the migration of the ancestors of the Polynesians from Asia. But it was the Tour that proved that before that they had visited America, located thousands of miles to the east. Already in the 21st century, a DNA analysis of Polynesians and South American Indians was carried out, which showed a high degree of relatedness between these ethnic groups.

The researcher organized a new expedition to Easter Island. Here he was interested in famous idols. Who put these bulky sculptures here and why? And although Tur did not give a complete answer to this question, he found out that the stone heads are a continuation of the bodies buried in the ground. In addition, he found previously unknown idols and ruins of buildings that strongly resembled pre-Inca structures in South America...

Having passed his half-century anniversary, Heyerdahl still could not imagine himself outside of science. As a result of much thought, he came to another sensational conclusion: the ancient Indians and Egyptians sailed to visit each other! And again he decided to make the journey on a ship from ancient era.

Tur ordered the vessel from Egyptian craftsmen. They recreated it using ancient drawings and drawings from 12 tons of papyrus. Although the Egyptian Papyrus Institute warned that the stems would begin to disintegrate in salt water, the Norwegian believed more in the masters of the past. The ship was named "Ra", in honor of the Egyptian sun god.

For the new campaign, Heyerdahl recruited an international team. The expedition doctor was Yuri Senkevich, the future leader of the Travelers Club. In the spring of 1969, "Ra" under the UN flag set sail from the port of Safi in Morocco. In 8 weeks, the ship traveled 5 thousand kilometers, but did not reach the finish line: “Ra” in salt water, as scientists had warned, began to fall apart. The crew was saved from certain death by a passing yacht.

Heyerdahl did not give up. Less than a year later, with the same crew and from the same point, the papyrus boat “Ra-2” left. This time the ship was built by specialists from the Aymara tribe from Lake Titicaca (Bolivia). After 57 days, Ra-2, having defeated the Atlantic, finished off the island of Barbados. Heyerdahl was right.

Tour soon decided that Egypt had connections not only with America, but also with India. To test this assumption, he ordered a reed ship "Tigris" from craftsmen from Iraq - an exact copy of an ancient Sumerian ship. Leaving the Iraqi port of Shatt al-Arab, the Tigris crossed Persian Gulf, entered the Indian Ocean and approached the mouth of the Indus in Pakistan. The theory was again confirmed by practice. The 5-month voyage of the Tigris ended on April 3, 1978 in Djibouti: in protest against the war between Ethiopia and Somalia, the crew burned the ship.

Heyerdahl's last guess

In the spring of 2001, 87-year-old Thor Heyerdahl flew to Rostov-on-Don. This was not an idle journey: he wanted to find evidence for his theory that the ancestors of the Scandinavians were the Udins, one of the ethnic minorities of Azerbaijan. From them, according to the researcher, comes the name of the highest deity of the Vikings, Odin. The scientist believed that they walked north precisely through the Don steppes.

This time he did not have time to prove that he was right: he was already seriously ill. Despite this. The tour amazed others with its efficiency. “I worked late. The light in his room was on until two o'clock in the morning. And at half past seven in the morning he was already on his feet,” recalled translator Evgeniy Vitkovsky. “First I walked in front of the hotel, then returned to my room - took a cold shower, did exercises, had breakfast and went to the excavations...”