"Land! An island! We devoured it greedily with our eyes and woke the others, who tumbled out drowsily and stared in all directions as if they thought our bow was about to run on to a beach." Heyerdahl and his crew after many months at sea finally spotted land, as stated in the quote. I cannot imagine the relief they must have felt knowing that they were not just drifting aimlessly in the Pacific. The island that the crew saw was Puka Puka, and even as enticing as this island may have seemed, the crew decided to continue sailing to Angatau.After three days the crew spotted their desired island. Although the crew was in sight of land they still had a problem: how could they make it to shore while avoiding the coral reef reefs? This must have been so hard for the crew to have been so close to land and still have to spend days on the raft trying to find a way to shore. To me this would be like holding candy in front of a small child each day for a week straight without letting the child eat the candy. While drifting around the coral reef trying to find a safe spot to cross, natives from the island came out on canoes to try to help the crew. After much struggle against the wind, the crew and the natives gave up the fight to cross the coral reef with the Kon-Tiki, which was drifting out to sea again. The crew was so close to finally ending their trip, but they could not fight the forces of nature which were blowing them away from the island. This must have been difficult to have seen a possible end to their journey slipping away from the Kon-Tiki crew.
"The breakers were silent; only the sea roared as it used to, and all the ropes on board the Kon-Tiki creaked and groaned." Here Heyerdahl uses onomatopoeia to describe the sounds the Kon-Tiki made.
No comments:
Post a Comment