The Ra Expeditions

by Thor Heyerdahl

  Ra 11 was lying uncomfortably deep in the water when we were ready to try out the new system late on the second evening. Everyone realized that we had a tough job ahead if we were to complete the second half of the voyage. The position improved a little as soon as we got the crippled oar in place. We immediately managed to turn the stern into the seas, retrieve the sea anchor and speed westward under reefed sail. The day after that we took a chance on unfurling and hoisting the whole mainsail. Once again the big sail seemed to lift us higher out of the water as it drove us forward at a rate of almost three knots, over sixty miles a day. But now the deck was only just above water. Astern the seas continued to wash in one side and out the other. Ahead, heavy seas flung themselves over us at regular intervals if we tried to sit round the poultry coop as before, so we all had to squeeze together and eat on the mast ladder, like birds on a bough.

  "We have to make a barrier against the worst breakers so that the water on board has time to run out, otherwise we'll sink," said Yuri, and busied himself hanging up a strip of canvas which he stretched forward from the mast stays on the starboard side, made fast with thick cords top and bottom.

  "Relax, Yuri!" Everyone laughed. "The first wave v^dll rip that strip of canvas." But the enterprising Yuri went on resolutely.

  The next wave came frothing along the starboard cabin wall, lazily pushed Yuri's canvas wall into a little bulge and poured overboard. Only a little water trickled in on the foreward deck; the canvas had channeled the rest away. Yuri sat down triumphantly at the poultry coop to eat, while the rest of us came down wide-eyed from the mast ladder with our plates when we saw that the next wave did

  the same, and the next. There we sat at the table, gazing at Yuri the wizard who could stop the sea by hanging up a cloth. The secret was that the papyrus tail aft took the force of the sea and split the wave in two. The sailcloth curtain had only to channel overboard that cross section of the wall of water that came surging along both sides of the boat.

  "More canvas!"

  With the hunting knife we cut up all the sailcloth that covered the front wall of the cabin, so from then on we could see straight through the wickerwork to the poultry coop, the masts and the sea. Then we cut up the whole of the spare mainsail. Yuri hung up the pieces and soon we weire living behind a veritable screen of burgundy, orange, green and yellow. The waves flowed along the screen, giving it a friendly nudge so that the mast stays swung like a clothesline in the wind and only a tiny proportion of the torrents of water found its way on board.

  "Hippies! Gypsies!" cried Carlo and Georges, roaring vdth laughter, next time they launched the little three-man rubber raft to film us from outside. We popped our heads up over Yuri's multicolored screen and looked at the two of them as they vanished and reappeared behind the wave crests.

  "Come back," I yelled. "Get yourselves on board a proper ship before you capsize."

  We had inflated the little raft and filmed ourselves before, in a flat calm and later on fine seas, but now we were so used to waves and salt water that everyone was beginning to get reckless.

  Days and weeks continued to roll on with the waves. In the course of barely a year, the six of us who had been on Ra I had been together on reed rolls for almost four months. After the accident with the rudder-oar we had to start water rationing, two cups per man per day, plus nine quarts jointly for cooking. Several jars had cracked, some had admitted salt water. That we ourselves had poured the contents of most of the goatskins out into the sea when we were becalmed was a dehcate subject which it was better not to broach. What a piece of impetuosity! Carlo was plagued with salt water sores in the groin and Yuri prescribed bathing with fresh water twice a day. Poor Carlo used the contents of one cup; he would not allow himself any more. The duck, the dove and the monkey together

  tippled as much as one man every day. Georges protested violently at innocent animals being rationed like us men. Santiago was not a hundred per cent fit, either. He had been treated for kidney stones before the start and was not supposed to eat salted meat, nuts, dried vegetables, eggs. These were the dishes that dominated our menu. He was fatigued, but performed all his duties on board without a murmur. As long as he was not neglecting a duty he prefened to lie on his back in the inmost corner of the cabin, where Yuri kept him under observation.

  One evening we were all tired. Santiago came out of the cabin opening with a dark face and sat down with the rest of us by the poultry coop. He looked from Carlo to Georges.

  "I heard some nasty remarks through the cabin wall!"

  Carlo blew up! "Drop that professorial face."

  "Take on a bit more, like the rest of us," interrupted Georges. "If you volunteer to relieve a tired helmsman you turn up ten minutes before his watch ends."

  The accusations began to fly. Hard-working Carlo and playboy Georges had had difficulty in understanding each other on the previous trip, but they were the best of friends now, and for the moment the quiet professor of anthropology had got under both their skins. He was now informed that he lay in the comer psychoanalyzing us while the others worked. Moreover, it was his idiotic idea that we should have food and water in jars this time as well, instead of light cans and water in jerry-cans. On Ra I we had proved that it was possible to live without modem food. Why the devil did we have to prove it a second time? And having talked us into bringing more than a hundred ceramic jars this time as well, he as quartermaster should have secured them well enough to prevent them from breaking and forcing us to ration the water.

  "The jars are just as light as jerry-cans, and who was it who emptied all the water out of the big goatskins into the sea!"

  There was a savage duel of words; angry allegations and all sorts of suppressed irritations poured out and took away the appetite of everyone round the poultry coop. Santiago struck out again, from his soapbox on the mast ladder, but was left sitting almost punch-drunk under the joint assault of the others.

  "Carlo," I said. "You are a professional mountaineer, an experi-

  enced expedition man. You mustn't expect a university professor to be as good as you at knots and weight-lifting. You are like a priest, so perfect that you want other people to do everything as well as you do."

  That was apparently the worst thing I could have said. Carlo rose slowly, his face turning redder than his beard, one hand clutching at his bushy hair.

  "Me, a priest!"

  For a moment he stood speechless, swallowing. Then he turned away from me to Santiago and suddenly thrust out an open palm, covered with calluses:

  "All right. Let's forget all about it, boys!"

  Everyone leaned across the poultry coop and shook hands. Norman ran to fetch harmonicas for himself and Kei, and Madani pulled out his Moroccan drum. When I slipped into bed two hours later I fell asleep to the sound of a celebratory orchestra and chorus from the foredeck, with a repertoire from seven different corners of the globe.

  The experiment with Ra I the year before had been reduced to a mere drift voyage on the very first day at sea, when we broke both rudder-oars. The elements carried us westward in a curve, and we were making straight for Barbados, far south in the West Indian chain, when we broke off the experiment. This time we were still completely seaworthy, and decided to steer for the island to which nature herself would have carried us last time. So, every day, the distance ahead was measured in numbers of sea miles from Barbados. We could not have picked a better course to give us wind and sea dead astern. But it was damnably difficult for the helmsman to prevent the waterlogged reed boat from broaching to and drifting beam on toward Barbados. We were worn out at the end of an average night watch, almost unable to straighten our cramped fingers. And if the boat swung round so that the sail was taken aback and the sea rushed on board, it was as if devils had boarded our ship under cover of the night. Yuri's sailcloth would be torn and angry curses rained down on the poor helmsman as seven half-asleep men had to put on their life belts. Naked bodies tumbled out into the darkness, waist-
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br />   deep in seething water, to heave and haul at the sail, row or back the oars at the stern, and rescue cargo. Some of the men asked as a precaution not to be left responsible for the bridge alone, so we increased the hard night watch from two to three hours, but with two men on the bridge at once.

  We had to think of something if we were to avoid wearing ourselves to death with the laborious steering system.

  "If only we could move the masts forward," I mused one night, when Norman and I were keeping watch together on the bridge. "If the sail were right forward in the bow the boat would steer itself down wind."

  "We can," said Norman eagerly. And before anyone really knew what was happening next morning we were carrying out an extremely difficult operation. The top of the heavy straddled mast had to be tilted to bring the big sail forward.

  Norman began chopping at the base of the masts with a hatchet, so that the footplate began to lean forward. Next we cautiously slackened off all the twelve parallel stays that ran aft, six from each leg of the straddled mast to each side of the reed boat. We could then tilt forward the thirty-foot double mast, which weighed at least six hundred pounds. As we pulled the mast top forward the yardarm followed, and when we fastened the mast stays again the wind-filled mainsail was hanging in a curve down in front of the high papyrus bow. The steering improved at once, as long as our only desire was to follow the wind, nose first.

  Rd II sailed westward at dazzling speed. All further sinking soon stopped when there was enough papyrus under water to counteract the new cargo we had shipped in the form of unwanted sea water on deck. Five weeks after the start we were no longer sinking, but we were lying so low that in calm water the deck was scarcely above the surface, and from now on barnacles began to grow on the papyrus deck along the exposed starboard wall of the cabin. Madani continued to fish up lumps of oil every single day.

  On a day of rain and savage squalls the sail caught fast on the slender bow and turned it a little more askew, while the sailcloth seam along the bottom tore. The sail was next in importance to us after the hull, and after consultation we decided to sacrifice the fine upswept bow. Carlo sat astride in the bow, sawing away at our

  proud vessel. For safety's sake we tied a rope firmly round the bow so that the whole reed boat would not split when the two important spiral ropes were cut as we sliced off the entire tip of our vessel. But our Indian builders had been right. The rope was wedged so tightly in its coils round the little built-in central bundle that, even with our combined efforts, we could not pull it loose. The papyrus reeds were so compressed and swollen that the cross section in front looked like a giant sliced onion when the bow fell to the vandal's saw. Ra 11 at once took on a more sober, modern line, and through the wicker of the cabin wall we could suddenly see the whole horizon ahead under the sail. It was as if the shutters of the ark had been set ajar so that we could begin to look out for land ahead.

  Not many days later we decided to saw off the stern peak as well. It had been left standing like a close-hauled sail after the bow had fallen and made the course unsteady, besides which we wanted to reduce unnecessary weight. It was with a distinctly shaky feeling that we removed the fatal bowstring from the tip of the curly tail and moved it down on to the flat, broad chicken's tail that was left. But no amount of interference seemed to affect the unrivaled toughness of this vessel. One after another we slipped overboard on a line, emerging relieved and delighted to report to those who had not yet been under the living room floor and seen for themselves that Ra II was unchanged under water, just as rigid, just as firm, just as complete. Not a reed, not a rope had shifted, only now it was covered with living barnacles, like little black and white mushrooms, with waving yellow gill fringes.

  The little amateur radio set came out of its case less often now than on the previous trip. We thought the families at home were feeling more secure, and we were reluctant to worry them with much more than a simple "all well on board." But in the last half of the second month we were sailing so fast and had traveled so far that we could give an approximate time and place for landing. Yvonne packed her bag at once and flew to Barbados with the children.

  Not long afterward Norman made contact with a radio ham on Barbados and we heard my wife's voice. Yvonne produced six unexpectedly technical questions about the marine life that had joined

  US under the reed bundles and next explained that the answers were of interest to the head of a marine biology project which the United Nations Development Aid Department had stationed on Barbados for the time being. We were able to report on the faithful escort of various small friends swimming with us under the reed floor, a couple of dolphins chasing flying fish round us, and large flocks of sea birds from South America circling like drifting clouds over the horizon to south and west, where glittering tuna exploded like silver rockets out of the blue sea. Next day the radio ham told us to expect a visit from a UN research vessel.

  On June 25 a brown, four-winged dragonfly fluttered on board. Were we so close to land? Or had the big insect hitched a ride on some boat that had passed beyond the horizon? There had been an extraordinary dearth of ships since a couple had almost run us down in the traffic off Africa.

  We were now sailing at full speed into the area where we had abandoned Ra I after the final dramatic days of last year's voyage. We all shuddered when a shout from the steering bridge drew our attention to a fierce shark that was snapping furiously at the red buoy we were towing in case anyone fell overboard. It was just here that we had met all the sharks last year. But this year's solitary wanderer soon abandoned the buoy and disappeared northward. The sharks were apparently uninterested in a craft like Ra II, which needed no underwater repairs.

  On June 26 the seas began to heave violently again and the waves came racing after us, with white combs frothing like snow from an engine wheel plow. Rain rushed down on us from dense clouds. We let the salt wash off our bodies and licked our arms. We could have collected rain water, but we were sailing so fast that the rations would hold out. The duck waddled round on the roof, sipping at the puddles. Safi wanted to crawl into the cabin. The starboard rudder-oar stuck in its forks and we were afraid it would break, but Kei chipped it loose under water. Next day the tame pigeon had gone. For some time it had seemed restless, flying in big circles over the Ra, and yet always fluttering back to the grain bowl on the roof. But on June 27 it took off and was gone for good. The Flood must be nearly over. The ark had lost its dove. We missed it. Had it got wind of land? The nearest coast was French Guiana to the south.

  The venturesome dove now bore two rings, one with its Spanish number and another marked "Ra 11."

  On June 28 the water temperature suddenly rose two degrees and after that we saw no more lumps of oil. Had we passed into another branch of the current? This was strange, for it was just here that we had been wallowing in lumps of oil when we abandoned Ra I last year, and the whole sea moves in an incessant circuit between the continents.

  On June 29 we found Safi's chain hanging slackly in the sea. It was empty. Chaos on board. Then Safi, free at the top of the mast, was looking triumphantly down at us. Neither coconut nor honey tempted her down, but when Yuri fetched her favorite toy, an ugly green, squeaking, rubber frog with big red eyes, Safi was down on deck like lightning to recover the frog, while Yuri recovered the monkey. Immediately afterward there was a yell from Norman in the cabin. He had made direct contact with a radio ham on the UN research vessel Calamar, which was quite close, and which had asked us to send up rockets after nightfall so that she could find us in the choppy seas.

  That night we were given a fright of a quite unexpected kind. Norman roused me in a low voice for the change of watch on June 30 at 0.30 hours, and I sat up in my sleeping bag and began to pull on my socks, as the air was raw and cold on the bridge. Then he called again, and this time there was terror in his voice:

  "Come quick, quick! Look there!"

  I dived out of the opening in the wicker wall with Santiago close
at my heels and we hoisted ourselves over the cabin roof where Norman was pointing.

  It was like the Day of Judgment. Over the horizon to starboard, in the northwest, rose a pale, round disc, which never completely left the water, but grew and grew like a phantom aluminum-colored moon rising half-hidden by the rim of sea. Like a compact nebula, brighter than the Milky Way and symmetrically circular, it grew in size, a stemless mushroom, and seemed to be rushing straight toward us as it spread farther and farther across the sky. The moon was up on the opposite side, in a starry, cloudless sky. My first thought was a reflection against a veil of humidity from an enormous searchlight over the horizon, my next was an atomic cloud caused by human

  error, or a phenomenon of the northern hghts, but the feeHng that a scintillating shower of foreign bodies was descending on us from the cosmos persisted, until the disc of light was covering about thirty degrees of sky. Then it suddenly stopped growing, dissolved almost imperceptibly and disappeared. We were left without an explanation.

  We now began to burn flickering red flares and send up rockets of starry rain to show the Calamar our position. That was an extraordinary night, wdth a bizarre atmosphere. We heard the voice from the Calamar on the little set again but they could not see the rockets and had not been on deck when the disc of light appeared. Next morning we heard through the radio ham on Barbados that the same phenomenon had been observed from several of the West Indian Islands, but in a northeasterly direction. Was it a section of rocket from Cape Kennedy that had exploded and burned out as it fell into the atmosphere? We never knew. But UFO enthusiasts looking for evidence of flying saucers confused the phenomenon with two previous observations we had made on two successive nights, farther out to sea. We had seen small orange lights on the horizon to the northwest. One was a brief flash, with no sign of a ship, the other was drop-shaped and we saw it just as it sailed diagonally down and vanished into the sea. We had alerted radio hams on land, in case they were emergency rockets from ships in trouble, but no SOS had been sent out so the indications were that they were signals between naval vessels on exercise, perhaps a submarine marking its position on the surface.