I spend a lot of days lately, floating around on a plastic kayak. A little raft of sorts. I paddle it through rough seas occasionally.
Well, relative to it's size that is.
I once took it to a barrier island that had no electicity and spent the night under the stars. I feel alive out there. With nature. Subject to her moods. And at the mercy of the creatures you might run into that could easily ruin your day if they wanted to. That's why I named her, 'Kon Tiki'.
A few decades ago, I stumbled upon Thor Heyerdahl's book by the same name. It recanted his journey 5,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean on a self-built raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands in 1947.
FIVE THOUSAND MILES!!
It took him and his five companions 101 days to complete the trip. Driven only by the wind and the current. No one thought they would survive.
Thor and his crew DID survive. They made history. And those men forever looked back on that time when they were adrift and free. Living life. Not just reading about it.
I certainly couldn't compare my time spent on the water to their adventure with any sincerity, but paddling my kayak sometimes does give me the idea of what it must have been like for them; To be living memories that would last forever.
I HAVE trekked through knee deep mud, lost at sundown in mangrove tunnels (you know who you are out there that shared that adventure) I've floated on my own raft at night, content with just gazing at the stars and have been at total ease, watching a campfire in the middle of nowhere, with nowhere to go and no desire to leave.
It's a feeling of escape. A release from life's boring nonsense that seems, sometimes to be important enough to stress me out during the normal days. I'm writting about that peace that lingers for days or months or in some instances, a lifetime after such adventures.
Thor Heyerdahl's book captured that feeling for me. And I just discovered that in 2012, a movie was made about that book. I just started watching it and it made my hair stand up. (I'm only like ten minutes into it!)
I paused it to write this.
I wanted to capture this feeling I got. And to encourage you, if you haven't already read the book, to read it. Most of you probably won't. And if you do, you might not agree that it's so captivating. But if you do, and it does move you half as much as it did me; You're welcome.
And if there are no times you've spent among Nature that haven't tested your will, that made you say halfway through; 'what the hell am I doing?' only to leave you enlightened and alive for many days afterward, BY ALL MEANS! Go out there and live a little.
Even it is as simple as getting off the couch and paddling a little plastic raft down a river.
KON TIKI trailor...
