Heroism in a hyper world
While my childhood peers had heroes who were faster than speeding bullets, I worshipped a Norwegian marine biologist who got his kicks from building rafts. It was my deepest, darkest secret, something best not to let slip in the playground for fear of being ostracised.
While the other children were immersed in comic books, pretending they were fictional characters with superhuman qualities, I dreamed I was the real-life adventurer Thor Heyerdahl, setting sail for the unknown on yet another flimsy craft.
Heyerdahl, for the uninitiated, made waves in 1947 when he sailed his primitive balsa raft, Kon Tiki, 8,000km from Peru to Polynesia, in 101 days. He did it to prove his theory that Pacific islanders could have descended from ancient South American mariners rather than Southeast Asians.
Then he fired my eight-year-old mind, in 1970, when he took on the Atlantic in a raft made from papyrus. This time, he crossed from Morocco to Central America to test the belief that Egyptian pharaohs could have sunned themselves on the beaches at Cancun thousands of years before American tourists.
In 1978, he made a political statement by burning another raft, Tigris, after sailing it from Iraq to the Indus Delta of Pakistan and finally to the Horn of Africa. He did it to protest against the wars that were raging on all sides at the time.
Heyerdahl died in 2002, at the age of 87, and his theories are frowned on by many anthropologists as unscientific. But his dogged determination to prove his beliefs, even to the point of risking his life, is laudable in the extreme. He was driven by sheer guts and determination, pitting himself for months on end against the elements with few tools of modern-day civilisation to help him get by.
Now, that's still my kind of hero.
Alas, bobbing about on a balsa boat in the oceans is a tad tame in a world of extreme sports and super athletes, adventure holidays that take you deep into the Amazon or - as British billionaire Richard Branson is proposing - into space.
Tell your friend that this is what you will be doing on your next holiday, and he is likely to scratch you off the invitation to accompany him the next time he climbs Mount Everest without oxygen, Sherpas or thermal underwear.
Heyerdahl has faded into history, despite his best-selling books and the Academy Award he won in 1951 for the documentary Kon Tiki. Confronted with the excitement we demand in our lives, he just cannot compete.
So, imagine my surprise when I learned that his grandson, Olav, is due to set sail today as part of a six-man crew re-enacting the Kon Tiki voyage. The new raft, Tangaroa, is named after the Polynesian god of the ocean. It has 11 balsa logs, two more than Kon Tiki and, at 16 metres, is two metres longer. While the original craft had only primitive equipment on board - even by 1947 standards - the new vessel is fitted with solar panels for electricity and heating, and satellite gear for navigation and communications.
But the ideals of the first trip are being adhered to: the vessel must be of traditional design and built in the same, centuries-old manner. That has created some problems, as balsa logs are not as plentiful as they once were, and the river down which they were floated to the Pacific Ocean has dried up in places because of deforestation.
The chances are high that, when Olav makes landfall some time in August, his diary will be markedly different from that of his grandfather's. Because of environmental degradation, another re-enactment may not be possible in another 60 years.
Whether he makes headlines as his grandfather did is also questionable. Nonetheless, it is the spirit that counts - and to me, Thor Heyerdahl's lives on.
Peter Kammerer is the Post's foreign editor
