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tropical island theme Without consciously planning it, there was a definite tropical island theme to the two movies that I watched today and it all started an hour or so after midnight. At that very peaceful time of the day, I sat down on the couch to watch a documentary on the Kon-Tiki. I can't remember when I first became aware of the boat and its voyage, but I knew that Thor Heyerdahl believed that the South Pacific islands were settled by people from South America instead of the more commonly accepted theory that the human migration started from Asia. So in an effort to prove his theory, he constructed a raft with no nails or rivets and made a voyage from Peru to Tahiti. It took his crew of five men three months, but with nothing except the wind to power them, they did what others said was impossible. They made it alive from Peru to an island near Tahiti with what seemed like minimal trouble. Personally I think that has more to do with Thor and his crew than anything else. All of them were men of science so they knew the risks and how to approach them in a logical manner. If they had been everyday people they may not have fared as well as they did. What I found the most amusing about the documentary was how the voiceover tends to be very matter of fact. For example, there is scene where they show a rubber raft being rowed away from the Kon-Tiki. This is accompanied by the statement that the men rowing away had a horrible time trying to get back to the rest of the men. It seems that the Kon-Tiki was moving much faster in the water than the men in the rubber raft could row. So what looked very ordinary was in fact a near disaster. That kind of calm observation carries over through most of the film. I guess that that shouldn't surprise me. They didn't have time to film themselves when tropical storms hit. They were much too busy trying to stay alive. So what we see in the film is them more or less relaxing. Later this afternoon, I found myself back in the South Pacific, but got there from a different angle. I finally saw the Tom Hanks film Cast Away for the very first time. Generally speaking I enjoyed the movie and was amazed at how much it had in common with Kon-Tiki. Both films had men on rafts crossing a vast amount of water with nothing but the wind to propel them. This is a scenario that I can imagine me ever experiencing. Over the years I've spent a small amount of time in the waters off Hawaii, taken a boat from the south island to the north island of new Zealand, but that is the most time that I have ever spent on the Pacific Ocean. Spending weeks floating on a wooden raft of some sort is almost beyond me. Would I be seasick in the beginning? Would my skin bronze over in a week? How often would my nose peel? How much weight would I lose? Would I be able to sleep at night knowing that there was nothing but water beneath me? Something about all of that open water is very overpowering to me. The water cares nothing for my life and is indifferent to whether or not I would survive. Plus I have no idea how I would react the first time that I saw a shark or whale come near the raft. Tom Hanks only saw a whale in his movie, but in the documentary, Thor and his men were constantly killing the sharks that came near the raft. They were both a source of food and a source of danger. Periodically they had to check the underside of the raft and having sharks in the water made that a very hazardous task until they cobbled together a crude shark cage. Despite one being real and the other imaginary, I found both stories to be very stirring. They made me wonder how I would react in the same situation. Would I be able to survive on an uninhabited island by myself? Would I be able to make fire? Would I be able to fish and eat crab? All of these questions go far beyond what is seen on an episode of Survivor. |