ПРЕКУ ТИХИОТ ОКЕАН НА СПЛАВ
4
ACROSS THE
PACIFIC
A
Dramatic Start
We Are
Towed Out to Sea
A Wind
Springs Up – Fighting the Waves
Life in
the Humboldt Current
Plane
Fails to Find Us
Logs
Absorb Water
Wood
Against Ropes – Flying Fish for Meals
An
Unusual Bedfellow
Snakefish
Makes a Blunder – Eyes in the Sea
A Marine
Ghost Story
We Meet
the World’s Biggest Fish
A Sea
Turtle Hunt
Across the Pacific
THERE WAS A BUSTLE IN CALLAO HARBOR THE DAY the Kon-Tiki was to be towed to the sea. The minister of marine had ordered the naval tug Guardian Rios to tow us out of the bay and cast us off clear of the coastal traffic, out where in times gone by the Indians used to lie fishing from their rafts. The papers had published the news under both red and black headlines, and there was a crowd of people down on the quays from early in the morning of April 28.
We six who were to assemble on board all had
little things to do in 11 hour, and, when I came down to the quay, only Herman
was there keeping guard over the raft. I intentionally stopped the car long way
off and walked the whole length of the mole to stretch my legs thoroughly for
the last time for no one knew how long. I jumped on the board the raft, which
looked an utter chaos of banana clusters, fruit baskets, and sacks which had
been hurled on board at the very last moment and were to be stowed and made fast.
In the middle of the heap Herman sat resignedly holding on to a cage with a
green parrot in it, a farewell present from a friendly soul in
“Look after the parrot a minute,” said Herman.
“I must go ashore and have a last glass of beer. The tug won’t be here for
hours”.
He had hardly disappeared among the swarm on
the quay when people began to point and wave. And around the point at full
speed came the tug Guardian Rios. She dropped anchor on the farther side
of a waving forest of masts which blocked the way in to the Kon-Tiki and
sent in a large motorboat to tow us out between the sailing craft. She was
packed full of seamen, officers, and movie photographers, and, while others
rang out and cameras clicked, a stout towrope was made fast to the raft’s bow.
“Un momento,” I shouted in despair from
where I sat with the parrot. “it’s too early; we must wait for the others – los
expedicionarios,” I explained and pointed toward the city.
But nobody understood. The officers only smiled
politely, and the knot at our bow was made fast in more than exemplary manner. I
cast off the rope and flung it overboard with all manner of signs and
gesticulations. The parrot utilized the opportunity afforded by all the
confusion to stick its beak out of the cage and turn the knob of the door, and
when I turned round it was strutting cheerfully about the bamboo deck. I tried
to catch it, but it shrieked rudely in Spanish and fluttered away over the
banana clusters. With one eye on the sailors who were trying to cast a rope
over the bow I started a wild chase after the parrot. It fled shrieking into
the bamboo cabin, where I got it into a corner and caught by one leg as it
tried to flutter over me. When I came out again and stuffed my flapping trophy
into its cage, the sailors on land had cast off the raft’s moorings, and we
were dancing helplessly in and out with the backwash of the long swell that came
rolling in over the mole. In despair I seized a paddle and vainly tried to
parry a violent bump as the raft was flung against the wooden piles of the
quay. Then the motorboat started, and with a jerk the Kon-Tiki began her
long voyage.
My only companion was a Spanish-speaking parrot
which sat sulkily in a cage. People on shore cheered and waved, and the swarthy
movie photographers in the motorboat almost jumped into the sea in their
eagerness to catch every detail of the expedition’s dramatic start from
Meanwhile Erik and Bengt came sauntering down
to the quay with their arms full of reading matters and odds and ends. They met
the whole stream of people on its way home and were finally stopped at a police
barrier by a kindly official who told them there was nothing more to see. Bengt
told the officer, with an airy gesture of his cigar, that they had not come to
see anything: they themselves were going with the craft.
“It’s no use,” the officer said indulgently.
“The Kon-Tiki sailed an hour ago.”
“Impossible,” said Eric, producing a parcel.
“Here’s the latern!”
“And there’s the navigator,” said Bengt, “I am
the steward.”
They forced their way past, but the raft had
gone. They trotted desperately to and fro along the mole where they met the
rest of the party, who were also searching eagerly for the vanished raft. Then
they caught sight of the boat coming in, and so we were all six finally united
and the water was foaming round the raft as the Guardian Rios towed us
out to sea.
It had been late in the afternoon when at last
we started, and the Guardian Rios would not cast us off till we were
clear of the coastal traffic next morning. Directly we were clear of the mole
we met a bit of a head sea, and all the small boats which were accompanying us
turned back one by one. Only a few big yachts came with us out to the entrance
to the bay to see how things would go out there.
The Kon-Tiki followed the tug like an
angry billy goat on a rope, and she butted her bow into the head sea so that
the water rushed on board. This did not look very promising, for this was a
calm sea compared with what we had to expect. In the middle of the bay, the
towrope broke, and our end of it sank peacefully to the bottom while the tug
steamed ahead. We flung ourselves down along the side of the raft to fish for
the end of the rope, while the yachts went on end tried to stop the tug.
Stinging jellyfish as thick as washtubs splashed up and down with the seas
alongside the raft and covered all the ropes with a slippery, stinging coating
of jelly. When the raft rolled one away, we hung flat over the side waving our
arms down towards the surface of the water, until our fingers just touched the
slimy towrope. Then the raft rolled back again, and we all stuck our heads deep
down into the sea, while salt water and giant jellyfish fibers out our hair,
but when the tug came back the rope end was up and ready for splicing.
…
(KON-TIKI - Across the Pacific by Raft: Thor
Heyerdahl; 1947.)
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