Tag: Peru

Hi, all:

I bring you a book I discovered through Rosie’s Book Review Team, and in this case, through one of her own reviews. I had heard about the original expedition and had read accounts of one of the expeditions inspired by the original Kon-Tiki, so this book definitely piqued my curiosity.

We’re Sinking, but Not Tonight: The Kon-Tiki 2 Expedition by Torgeir Higraff and Randy Green

Defying the forces of nature, two balsawood rafts departed Peru in 2015 to conquer the Pacific: to sail to Easter Island and back. The Kon-Tiki 2 expedition leader, Norwegian explorer Torgeir Higraff, and bestselling author Randy Green deliver a pulse-pounding narrative in We’re Sinking, but Not Tonight, chronicling fourteen adventurers’ grueling ordeal — storms, hunger, clashing egos, and raft-threatening disasters at sea. Witness raw drama unfold into a tale of cooperation and unbreakable spirit. Dive into this heroic saga and sail the South Pacific from your armchair now!

About the authors:

Torgeir Sæverud Higraff is an explorer, teacher and author with special interest in prehistoric transoceanic contact. Like Thor Heyerdahl, Higraff combines history, anthropology and traditional knowledge with expeditions. In 2002, the year Heyerdahl died, Higraff decided to recreate the Kon-Tiki expedition, and in 2006 the Tangaroa Expedition sailed from Peru to Raiatea in eastern Polynesia. Tangaroa outperformed Kon-Tiki by using an improved sail rig and active use of the guara centerboards.

In 2014, Higraff proposed another expedition: to sail roundtrip from Peru to Easter Island. The Kon-Tiki2 expedition built two rafts in Callao in 2015 and reached Easter Island after 43 days at sea, becoming the first rafts to have sailed to Easter Island in modern times. The return journey proved more difficult due to unusual weather patterns and the expedition was terminated halfway between Easter Island and South America.

Randy Green is an American writer who moved to China to teach and has written several books on life as an expat, and later joined Torgeir Higraff and accompanied him in the expedition featured in this book.

My review:

I write this review as a member of Rosie’s Book Review Team (author, check here if you are interested in getting your book reviewed) and thank her and the author for this opportunity.

This book is a non-fiction account of a fascinating expedition that took place between 2015 and 2016, the brainchild of Torgeir Higraff, a Norwegian explorer who had long been fascinated by the original Kon-Tiki expedition, organised by Thor Heyerdahl, another Norwegian, in 1947: Heyerdahl was trying to prove his own theories about people’s migration between South America and Polynesia, and he managed to sail, on a raft, from Peru to Easter Island. Although many of his theories have been disproved since (and are very much of their time, and somewhat problematic when looked at from a modern perspective), the feat of sailing across the ocean in a raft, using primitive methods, was impressive, and resulted in a book, a film, and the raft became an exhibit in a museum.

Higraff wanted to go further and do a round trip. Due to the weather, currents, and seafaring conditions, the second part of the journey was expected to be much more complicated than the first leg, and that is the part of the adventure the book focuses mostly on, although not exclusively.

The book starts at a dangerous moment on the way back to Peru, and the description of the conditions these seven men are living in grabs the reader’s attention from the beginning. We also learn straight away where the title of the book comes from. As we read on, we hear about the process of planning, the search for sponsors and materials, the actual building of the two rafts (as it was decided that two rafts would be more likely to succeed, as they could support each other, undertake more experiments and collect more data), the Tupac Yupanki (the one we learn more about, as Higraff was travelling on it), and the Rahiti, with a female captain and several women in the crew. We also get to hear some stories about the first part of the journey, and we discover that much of the crew changed from one leg of the voyage to the other. The story is not told linearly, although we get an overall chronological account of the second part of the voyage.

I was fascinated by the description of how different the societies and the regimes that developed in the two rafts were, with the Tupac being much more relaxed, with few rules and fairly spontaneous, and the Rahiti adhering to an almost military routine. We don’t hear directly from the Rahiti, but there are some temporary exchanges of crew members, so we get some indications of how things worked in the other raft as well.

I am no expert in sailing, and I can’t say I understood all the terminology or the nautical details in the book, although it is evident that sailing on a raft is quite different from sailing aboard a ship. Higraff, who had experience of travelling by raft from previous expeditions, explains they had learned more about the techniques used by the traditional seafaring people from Peru, and they were also carrying different equipment from that the original Kon-Tiki had access to (GPS, Wi-Fi, access to internet and social media…). Not all had changed for the better, though. They were measuring plastics in the sea, which wasn’t a feature in times of Heyerdahl, and they soon realised that finding fish was no longer as easy as it had been in the late 1940s.

There are great descriptions of life at sea, of the hardships they had to endure, of the foods they cooked, of how they slept (or not), and it did feel as if one was there, although I will try and find pictures and footage of the expedition, to see if my imagination matches what it must have been like. (I only had access to an e-book ARC copy, so I am not sure if there might be some extra material in the paperback copy.)

Some of the information and anecdotes appear more than once because of the way it is told. Although it might feel slightly repetitive at times, it also gives readers a sense of how differently time passes in a raft, and how much time crew members dedicate to ruminate about how they got there and what will happen next, more so for the person who is ultimately responsible for the expedition and for deciding if the whole operation can carry on or should be called off.

The ending is very far from Hollywood, as the author says, but it is fitting, and it leaves things quite open to those who might feel as inspired by this expedition as Higraff was by the original Kon-tiki.

I recommend reading the section of acknowledgments, particularly those of Higraff, which I found particularly moving. This is especially true when he explains why it took him so long to write the book and mentions how he coped with what he was told was a traumatic experience. It must have taken a lot of courage to relive the experience and his feelings about it, and that enhances the importance of this book.

An incredible adventure that teaches us as much about the people on the expedition and the human spirit as it does about the ancient civilizations that crossed the seas long ago.

Fascinating.

Here I leave you a Wikipedia link to the original Kon-Tiki expedition:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kon-Tiki_expedition

And a quote from the book:

“For me, the Tupac was alive, a living spirit that I shared everything with, that had kept me from certain death many times in the deep and dark ocean.”

Thanks to the authors for this book and for sharing their experience with us, thanks to Rosie and her team for all their support, and thanks to all of you for visiting, reading, sharing, clicking, and for always being there. Don’t forget to keep smiling and beware of the rough seas!