Most of our visitors, who were almost as numerous as at Constitucion, predicted many fearful disasters. But we had heard so many gloomy prognostications already that we paid no attention of them. The only brilliant exception was a cheerful curly-haired Czech, Eduardo Ingris, who from the very first was so enthusiastic that he even wanted to accompany us. Although we firmly refused to grant his wish, his confidence pleased us very much, for Ingris was the only one of all our visitors who had any previous experience of raft voyages. He had already in 1955 attempted to sail to the South Sea islands on a balsa raft of the Kon-Tiki type with the pretty name Cantuta, along with an Argentinian, a Dutchman, a Peruvian and an Indian girl from the vicinity of Lake Titicaca. But for some inexplicable reason this rather miscellaneous party started too late in the year from a place which lay too far north on the Peruvian coast, with the unfortunate result that the raft encountered adverse ocean currents which turned her into a merry-go-round for three months. The four men and the solitary woman were then picked up, emaciated and wearied, by an American warship.
Despite the unfortunate result of this ill-planned attempt Ingris was so eager to begin again that he came back every day and tried by new and ingenious arguments to persuade us to take him with us. Eric did for a short time seriously consider taking Ingris in place of Jean, but finally allowed such important considerations as Jean’s general ability and usefulness to outweigh his personal antipathy to him and fortunately did not replace him.
As soon as we had examined the raft and increased her buoyancy to the best of our ability, we completed our preparations in great haste by purchasing with what little money we had left two cases of tinned beef, 180 lb. of potatoes, a generator (used but in good condition’) and ten gallons of petrol for it. Our haste was due not only to our intense longing for the peace and quiet of the sea after all the noise and bustle of Callao, but also, and in an even higher degree, to the fact that we had no time to lose if we wanted to reach the South Sea islands before the hurricane season began in October.
A Peruvian wireless fan presented us at the last moment with a new vertical aerial and kindly helped us to fit it to the mast. Not till the day before we sailed were we at last ready to test our wireless transmitters. We could only just hear our friend the wireless fan, who lived in one of the suburbs of Lima hardly five miles from the harbour, but both he and all other experts assured us emphatically that reception was always extraordinarily bad in a wide circle round Callao on account of certain magnetic disturbances, and that we should be able to talk to all the Peruvian stations without the least difficulty as soon as we escaped from the dead zone. To be on the safe side I made another attempt a couple of hours later and the result was rather better, which removed our last anxieties.
A whole fortnight earlier in the year—but eleven years later—than the Kon-Tiki expedition, we were towed out of Callao harbour about 11 A.M.on Sunday, April 13, 1958, and a few hours later were left to our fate in the strong Humboldt Current, which immediately took over the towing. Ingris endeavoured up to the last moment to persuade us to take him on as an extra hand.1
To avoid being swept far up towards Panama by the Humboldt Current, as Cantuta had been, we steered due west during the first days, which, as the deviation was strong, actually resulted in a very satisfactory west-north-westerly course. At the same time, being quite aware that ocean currents can be very capricious, we kept a sharp look-out for the dreaded Hormigas, two bare rocky islands lying in the middle of the Humboldt Current about fifty miles from Callao. When we passed them two days after we had sailed we were, not at all to our surprise, a good deal nearer to them than we had intended, and Eric expressed the feelings of the whole crew when he burst out in tones of relief:
‘It’s nice to know that whatever happens after this, there’s no danger of our running ashore again during the next three months.’
‘Another good thing is that we haven’t any propeller to lose,’ I added cheerfully.
I had suddenly remembered my eventful voyage in Kaumoana five years before.
We had arranged with a couple of Peruvian wireless fans to contact them every Thursday and Sunday. The first wireless day at sea was, therefore, Thursday, April 17th. I carefully primed the motor in plenty of time, but however much I pulled the starting-rope at the appointed hour, it refused to start. I therefore took the whole motor to pieces well before the next contact was due, carefully examined all the parts and put it together again. The only reward for all these efforts was a few quickly suppressed coughing noises. We agreed at once with unanimity that we were still too near Callao to hear well, and we put away the generator and transmitter without regret.
About the same time—i.e., about a week after we had sailed—we changed—as easily and smoothly as a train changing tracks—from the Humboldt Current to the South Equatorial Current. All of a sudden the sea, hitherto a pale grey-green, became a bright dark blue, and began once more to swarm with tropical fish. We felt almost as if we were home already, for the waters round Tahiti are of this same colour. We cheerfully prepared our fishing gear. As usual, the dolphins were more numerous than all the other kinds put together, and on the first fishing day Jean spitted in a bare half-hour enough to have provided several solid meals for a crew ten times as large as ours. By degrees, however, he quite understandably grew tired of this rather dull sport, and let himself down into the sea with his spear-gun only when Juanito expressly asked for a fish. It was usually sufficient for Juanito to give his order five or ten minutes before dinner, just as he began to heat the frying-pan.
We had even less trouble when we wanted to feast on flying fish, for they came sailing on board of their own accord on their transparent, shimmering wing-fins. This happened especially at night, when our ship’s light attracted them like a magnet, and we had only to turn them over and make our choice. Late one evening a long thin fish with sharp teeth followed the example of the flying fish and jumped on hoard. It proved on close examination to be a gempylus or snake mackerel—the strange deep sea fish of which only two specimens were known before the Kon-Tiki expedition. Jean was quick to stuff it into a container of formalin and assured us that he knew an ichthyologist who would be crazy with joy at this unique gift.
Jean’s ichthyoligical friend would certainly have been at least as crazy—but not with joy—if he had seen what we did with another gempylus not long afterwards. When we found that these fish were continuing to jump on board we could at last no longer withstand the temptation to fry one. It tasted quite excellent, not unlike mackerel, and fried gempylus would certainly have been a standing dish on our menu if the supply had not suddenly run out. To make up for this we had more and more frequent visits from turtles, sharks and whales. Shark-catching was ridiculously easy, and we took many both on a hook and in a noose, but despite strenuous efforts on our part all the turtles which we tried to harpoon or catch with our hands in the Polynesian style escaped us at the last moment.
Not only did the ocean fauna round the raft resemble that which the Kon-Tiki men observed on their voyage, but life on board also followed the same pattern to a surprising extent. As the weather was brilliantly fine without interruption, and at this time the raft was still steering herself, we had so much time off that our voyage could without any exaggeration be called a holiday cruise. The only one of us who really had exacting and regular work to do was Jean, who daily made observations, took samples of water and collected plankton with incredible energy. Hans sometimes helped him, but killed most of the time in his own special way by random reading of the numerous philosophical and mathematical books which he had brought with him.
I myself discussed navigation and anthropology with Eric all round the clock, and, when he saw that his circle of listeners had widened, he could sometimes be induced to tell some splendid stories of his eventful life. Juanito had only one occupation when off duty: he slept as if he had been attacked by sleeping sickness during our stay in Callao. Now and again we turned on our wireless
receiver to divert ourselves with a little music, but as a rule we were obliged to turn it off again quickly because our tastes were so different that music which delighted some was found unbearable by the rest.
Once in the middle of May we happened to pick up an American news bulletin, which to our surprise was mostly about France. According to the announcer Algeria was in a state of complete rebellion and, what was worse, the rebellion threatened to spread to the rest of France at any moment. It is significant of our mental state at this time that we took this disturbing news very calmly. Shame to say, I think my first feeling was one of thankfulness at being in safety on a raft on the other side of the globe, and it seemed that my two countrymen Eric and Jean shared this feeling. As for Juanito and Hans, they were of course, like all true South Americans, incapable of taking either their own or other people’s revolutions seriously.
In Han’s well-stocked library there was a copy—in German—of Thor Heyerdahl’s book on the Kon-Tiki expedition, and of course we were not slow to make a number of comparisons. As everyone knows, the Kon-Tiki men wanted to prove that it was possible to sail from South America to Polynesia on a balsa raft, but it really made no difference to them at which of the many Polynesian islands they ended their voyage. We, on the other hand, were firmly resolved to reach Tahiti, and therefore kept a rather more northerly course than our predecessors to avoid the insidious coral reefs of the Tuamotu group. But this did not prevent us from comparing their daily runs with our own. We soon found to our satisfaction that we were keeping up at least as good a speed as the Kon-Tiki raft, i.e., thirty-five to fifty miles a day, and from May nth, when I rigged up an extra square sail made of two foresails sewn together, our daily runs were regularly a little longer than our rival’s. The member of our crew who took most interest in this original race with eleven years’ difference in time was, quite understandably, the engineer Hans, and I grew by degrees firmly convinced that he had brought the Kon-Tiki book with him solely for the sake of the mathematical diversion which he had foreseen he could obtain with its help. Every time I took the altitude of the sun Hans appeared, slide-rule in hand, and carefully worked out, first, our average speed since we left Callao and then the probable date of our arrival at Tahiti if we continued to maintain exactly the same speed—which of course we never did. How seriously Hans took this mathematical game was shown clearly by his losing his appetite and becoming really unpleasant to deal with after I had—to the ill-concealed delight of all the others—pulled his leg by giving him wrong positions for a whole week.
The only clouds which darkened our existence during this part of the voyage were a bit of trouble with the steering and continued difficulty in starting the generator. The main reason for the raft not keeping a course as well as we had expected was that we were altogether too few to be able to manage the fourteen large heavy centreboards—six forward and eight aft—as quickly and skilfully as the situation sometimes required. When I built the raft at Constitucion, warned by my experience on the outward voyage with Tahiti Nui I, I had placed a rudder astern as a necessary precaution. All the way up to Callao, and during the first part of our voyage in Kon-Tiki’s wake, we had left the fixed rudder alone and it had simply served as an extra centreboard. But now that, near the ninetieth degree of longitude, the raft was no longer keeping as good a course on account of the heavier sea, we simply loosened the rudder, nailed a tiller to the upper part of it and began to take turns at the helm. But these gave us little trouble, and to tell the truth we regarded them almost as pleasant breaks in our rather monotonous holiday life.
As for the big wireless transmitter, we waited till May 15th before making a fresh attempt to contact our Peruvian friends, who by then must have become very impatient. Our stubborn toil with the generator at last bore fruit, for it started at once with a dull mutter and continued to work perfectly. But this did not help us much, for now, for a change, there was trouble not only with the big transmitter, but also with the little one.
‘Haven’t I been saying all the time that we’ve been throwing away a heap of money quite unnecessarily on new-fangled follies?’ said Eric ironically. ‘I’ve never had any wireless of any sort on my earlier voyages, and I’ve got on just as well without it. Don’t let us bother any more about the wretched transmitters, and let us console ourselves with the thought that we should never have any more peace if we did manage to get them going!’
We others objected that wireless apparatus were sometimes not quite useless at sea: for example, we should have gone to the bottom with our first bamboo raft if we had not had a transmitter on board. Eric was compelled to admit that. But, as he quite rightly pointed out at once, there was no danger of our meeting with gales like that in the sunny latitudes where we now were. Could we not see with our own eyes that the wind and currents were pushing us along in the right direction, and grasp the simple truth that it would not be very long before we arrived? So why were we worrying so much about such a trivial thing? For that matter, Eric added with his usual completely groundless optimism, we might soon meet a ship which would undertake to tell our friends that all was well on board.
As the spoilt child of fortune that he was, he was right, and to his great satisfaction it was he himself who, on the afternoon of May 26th, first sighted a cargo ship overhauling us. At first we were convinced that he was trying to pull our legs, but when at last we loafed out through the cabin door we could doubt no longer, for the steamer was right on top of us. We saluted according to the current regulations for sea travel by dipping our ensign twice, and the steamer not only answered, but altered her course and steered towards us. We now saw that she was Pioneer Star, an American ship which calls at Papeete at long intervals. The captain slowed down a cable’s length away and hailed us through his megaphone. We waved cheerfully to him and to all the crew and passengers who were hanging over the rail, and Eric shouted as loud as he could:
‘Please tell our friends in Papeete that all are well on board Tahiti Nui 17.’
The captain seemed to have understood our messages despite the noise of the engines and the splashing of the waves, for he raised his hand, put on speed and continued his routine voyage towards our common destination beyond the horizon to westward.
Our meeting with Pioneer Star took place in 1 io°36’ west by 3025’ south, i.e., exactly halfway between Callao and Papeete, so we had covered the first half of our voyage in six weeks. In view of the evenness and strength of the trade winds in eastern Polynesia it was not unreasonable to hope, as we all did, that we should be able to complete the second half of the voyage at least as quickly. This meant that we should arrive just in time for the French national day, which in Tahiti is always celebrated with the longest and merriest festivities of the year.
1 Almost a year later to the day Ingris with one of his former and two new companions left Callao aboard a new balsa raft named Cantuta 11, built after the same principles as Kon-Tiki. After an uneventful voyage the raft crash-landed three months later on a reef in the Tuamotu Group.
Chapter 5
WET FEET
The day after our meeting with Pioneer Star it rained for the first time since we left Callao. It was a fine drizzle, and did not last long enough for us to replenish our water supplies, which were getting low. But we were glad of it all the same, for we regarded it as a friendly reminder from the gods of the weather that they had not forgotten us and would soon send us more and heavier showers. Immediately afterwards we got a strong favourable wind, and for several days on end it continued to blow so steadily and well that we were doing between two and two and a half knots. Consequently our spirits were very high when we drank our usual Saturday aperitif on the after-deck on May 31st, and our lively conversation was almost entirely about our festal arrival at Tahiti.
During the night the wind increased further in strength, which at first only pleased us. But when daylight came and we saw that the bow had been forced down a good four inches below the surface by the violent pressur
e of the wind on the sails, we immediately became rather worried and hastened to move the heaviest tanks and cases from the fore-to the after-deck. This improved matters a good deal, but the fore-deck was still not really clear of water. We were sure that the raft would straighten herself and resume her normal horizontal position if we struck or reefed the sails, hut we all preferred wetting our feet a little to reducing our good speed, the more so when the midday observation on June 2nd showed that we had covered as much as eighty miles during the last twenty-four hours, which was several miles better than our previous record.
As we should have anticipated, even in our excited state, our violent driving of the raft came to a quick end, which could easily have taken a tragic turn. During a squall in the night of June 4th~5th, while Juanito was on watch alone, the raft suddenly swung broadside to the sea and immediately took a heavy list.
‘Take in all sail, double quick,’ Eric ordered. He had grasped the situation as soon as he awoke.
We dashed out on deck with the water splashing round our legs and tried to grasp the slippery sheets and flapping sails. I had just managed, after a violent struggle, to untie a knot on my side of the cabin when I heard a thud from the other side. At the same moment someone yelled:
From Raft to Raft Page 11