Expedition reunites in Norway

On Oct 28, 2017, the Kon-Tiki2 expedition reunited in Asker, Norway, for a weekend of memories, hugs, and outdoor living. The sail from the Tupac raft shielded voluteer (who actually built the two rafts) and crew members (who sailed the rafts from South America to Easter Island and halfways back). Expedition leader Torgeir Higraff thanked everyone, and in particular the wonderful volunteers and the sponsors. A jacket from Brynje, maker of fine outdoor garments, was the first prize in the Kon-Tiki2 quiz. more pictures

Kon-Tiki2 Crew Ashore in Moscow

By Anna Turchaninova, translated by Nadia Artemieva

On March 1, 2017, the State Darwin Museum of Moscow hosted a much-awaited public appearance of Kon-Tiki2 crew – almost a year after the expedition's abrupt termination. Torgeir Sæverud Higraff, Boris Romanov, Andrey Chesnokov, Håkon Wium Lie, Pål Børresen and Evegny Schtil spoke to the public.

In spite of our real-time virtual presence aboard the rafts throughout the journey, what we saw and heard on Wednesday were some other pictures and a very much different view of the causes and consequences, along with some new emotion too. Torgeir spoke in much detail of his previous expedition – the Tangaroa – comparing it to Kon-Tiki2. «2006: I am in paradise and my dreams come true; 2016: a totally different picture». A different route (the leg from South America was completed and the return leg was not), a different raft design (Tangaroa rafts could have spent a year at sea), and, according to Torgeir, substantial deterioration in Ocean condition over the past ten years – in terms of the climate, the weather, plants and animals, etc.. He did emphasize the miscroplastic issue repeatedly, begging us to pay special attention, as otherwise «we would soon be finding pieces of plastic on our dinner plates».

Speaking specifically of Kon-Tiki2, Torgeir focused on people, the team, and everyone's special role. There's still some sort of rivalry between the female and male rafts, and Torgeir mentioned Rahiti's military camp discipline as opposed to Tupac's immensely fun and somewhat «couldn't care less» setup.

It's amazing how Torgeir seems to be still there, to keep sailing and living through the highs and lows of the mission, to keep loving every moment of it and mourning the expedition's ostensibly premature and abrupt ending. I didn't even dare to ask him whether he thinks this was a proof that sailing from Rapa Nui to South America is impossible, or just a misfortune. He kept saying «I was so happy» and «this has been a nightmare» or «these were the best days ever». He said that dismantling the rafts before evacuation was the toughest task ever: «in a male world, this is the closest one gets to abortion». (Which means the goal of reaching South America was the «baby», not the journey itself! Honestly, I could not disagree more! To us, the very fact that the mission happened has been way more important that the actual proof of the Polynesian genome hypothesis).

Torgeir is definitely a charismatic speaker, a born leader, and a highly handsome human being. I wanted to yell out «Hey, man, quit being upset, let's do another one!», but nobody dared to translate this for me :) But people still kept asking him about Kon-Tiki3, 4, 5 etc. He replied that his next mission will be on Chukotka (!) and asked for some phone numbers. As to Kon-Tiki3, his wife is likely to have some objections (which is understandable keeping Chukotka in mind).

Other crew members looked way more relaxed and calm. Torgeir's emotional and rapid slide show was followed by Evgeny Schtil's short film (or rather a collage) dissecting the expedition – with both cute details (like 200 books aboard the two rafts and 2 sweaters knitted by Signe) and some heart-breaking facts of evacuation and weight loss. Evgeny believes they needed more wine, condensed milk, meat preserves, and lard on board. On the other hand, he was pleasantly surprised by freshly baked bread and buns instead of the usual dry crackers. By the way, Evgeny did quite a few drawings, and Torgeir said that the mission needed such an artistic person aboard.

The audience has been a pleasure to watch, with many faces being familiar – from the Russian Kon-Tiki2 fan page on Facebook and elsewhere. The discussion part turned out to be a bit short – we definitely needed more time to debate the rumors and versions of what happened. The audience was well-prepared, so it could have been quite an argument. But Torgeir was wearing a suit! Our numerous kids made the whole thing less formal by both roaming around the conference hall and asking questions like «is he speaking English for a reason?», «what did you do when you were drowning?», «why didn't you have a phone?», etc. After the event the Norwegians took a picture with the bunch naming it «The Crew of Kon-Tiki15». That would certainly be fun.

For some reason, no one mentioned the books and movies they were all conceiving while on the rafts. Rumors are, Torgeir and Evgeny Schtil are editing videos and deciding on film formats, while Andrey Chesnokov has almost finished a book surpassing Thor Heyerdahl's epic writing...

Poet Elena Albul has asked a very deep question, something like: «the ones new to ocean voyages are all speaking of something new they discovered about themselves during the journey. But what is the romantic/transformative appeal of the mission for such an experienced explorer as Torgeir?» The matter was lost in translation, so Torgeir replied with delay and to a question never asked, or maybe the tough Norwegians couldn't care less about some stupid romantic appeal. That's what he said [in jest, editor's comment]: «I enjoy having people as slaves». Håkon managed technical support. Pål did human resources. Andrey performed routine operations on the raft. Boris and Sergey were mission doctors. Everyone had a job and I needed them all as professionals. As to me, I just love being at sea, this is my life».

While Kon-Tiki2 was at sea, Ole Bjørndalen won yet another gold medal, so we asked Torgeir via Andrey «What's your Norwegian secret?». He replied: «There's no secret. All he has in life are his skis and his rifle. He just keeps skiing and shooting all the time». Well, Torgeir, as I see him, just keeps sailing. We wish him all the luck right where he belongs – between the Ocean and the Skies! And he can always count on Russians for romantic appeal, deep meanings, and medical assistance.

And so the adventure began. At least according to my friend Ian Naysmith. Actually the plan was made a couple of months ago. During the rescue operation in the Pacific ocean in March, some important equipment and data were saved, weighting half a ton. We have ships sailing from here to Holland, we may place the equipment on one of those ships, said Eugenio Moreno, general manager of Gearbulk in Chile. He got Phil Curran, who is head of Gearbulks operation group in Chile, on the job. When the ship arrived in Rotterdam, Orestis Bakas from Gearbulks UK office took charge. Ian and I only had to drive a car and a trailer that I was happy to borrow in Oslo. Outside of the driving and occasional traffic, all went great. Steven Csanyi from Australia delivered the goods at the port with a big, helpful smile. On the map you can see the return route (blue line). The border crossings went okey. Fortunately we did not need to explain that the stuff in the trailer was from South America, picked up at a port in Rotterdam. We stayed one night in Osnabrück on the way south, and in Oldenburg driving north. Both pleasant towns. But driving 3000km in three days is not something I recommend as vacation. I think Ian agrees.

First of all my congratulations! For the first time you showed that it is possible to sail by a copy of an ancient Native American raft from South America directly to Easter Island. This in itself is a great achievement. In addition it gives further support to contacts between Eastern Polynesia and South America in pre-historic time.

You can read the full greeting, and greetings from Nadia Artemieva and P J Capelotti on the Kon-Tiki2 Greetings page.

Andrey, the Russian crew member on Tupac, did not arrive in Oslo, but he has written some closing remarks, well worth reading.

In Pilot Pardo we had chicken for lunch and were served wine. Now we rest in good beds and enjoy Chilean professional rescue standards. These men really know what they are doing. It took only a few minutes to bring us into the RIB boat and from this we were lifted up in the air and to the stairs that lead us onboard the 80 meter long ship. Talcahuano is their home port, some 450km south of Santiago. We'll be there Monday at 10am.

[In the pictures, you can see Captain Yun Sun Gug with Torgeir; a picture from the transfer to Pilot Pardo; the rescued Norwegian flag onboard Pilot Pardo along with recognizable crew members Lisa, Andrey and Pedro. Finally, Torgeir with the officers on Pilot Pardo]

We are very happy with the help from the Armada. In October last year, a month before the launch of the rafts, I met representatives of the Aramade in their headquarters in Valparaiso. On Easter Isladn, the Armada assisted us in mooring the rafts, and during the voyage we have had weekly contact with the Armada.

Kon-Tiki2 is a unique collaboration. Logs from Ecuador provided by the AirexBaltekBanova comany were turned into rafts in Peru at the shipyard of the The Peruvian Navy, then sailed to Easter Island, and finally rescued by The Chilean Armada in an attempt to reach South America.

Captain Ola and captain Signe, both needless to say concerned over the situation, were deeply impressed by how perfectly the captain maneuvered the 49 000 tonne and 210 meter long ship so close to the raft that the crew could throw mooring lines down to the rafts. This ship is as long as a skyscraper is high and has only one propeller - maneuvering is not easy. The huge hull of Hokuetsu Ushaka served to dampen the waves as the assisted raft was tied longside. A rope ladder was lowered down along the ship side and the raft crew, each secured with a harness, climbed up the 16 meter high ship side. Equipment was hoisted up in another rope that was manned by the dedicated crew that worked hard to save as much as possible.

All procedures were followed and it was a very successful rescue operation - twice! We would like to commend the captain and crew for the professional and friendly way in which we have been received onboard the ship.

We have shown that balsa rafts can sail to Easter Island. This is a first, in modern times. We have also made good progress on the return journey, but this is an El Niño year and the weather patterns we have encountered have been atypical. We realize that reaching South America will take too long and we prefer to evacuate to ensure safety for all, says Expedition leader Torgeir Higraff.

The Expedition consists of two balsa rafts that left Lima in Peru on Nov 7th, 2015, and arrived on Easter Island just before Christmas. On Jan 6th, 2016, the rafts started the demanding return voyage.

In a normal year, we would have reached South America by now. Instead, we are still 900 nautical miles from land and the weather forecasts are not promising. The crew is at good health and spirit, and there is no emergency situation. These rafts have proven to be exceptional vessels at sea. They have impressed us by their seaworthiness in all sorts of weather, over enormous and remote waters. Needless to say, it is sad to end the expedition without reaching South America, says Higraff.

The Kon-Tiki2 Expedition has done important scientific research on climate change, marine life, plastics, and pollution in the Pacific.

The rafts are rigged as floating research vessels through a unique collaboration between NIVA, NTNU, Kongsberg Maritime, Norwegian Meteorological Institute, Nortek, Sperre, Opera, and the American research organizations NASA and NOAA, says Cecilie Mauritzen, Chief Scientist of the Expedition. We have gathered large sets of data on climate change and pollution. From a scientific point of view, it has been particularly interesting that the expedition took place in one of the strongest El Niño years recorded, even if El Niño now contributes to the termination of the expedition. As research partners, we look forward to receiving and analyzing these data sets, says Mauritzen.

The Expedition is supported by Thor Heyerdahl Institute, 3A Composites AirexBaltekBanova, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Expedition is discontinued in close collaboration with the Chilean Navy, which have assisted us in a highly professional manner. The Norwegian Embassy has also communicated closely with the Expedition, says Ambassador Hege Araldsen at the Norwegian Embassy in Santiago, Chile.

For further information, contact Håkon Wium Lie, h@kontiki2.com or phone +47 90192217

As you can see in the pictures, the oven onboard Rahiti is also starting to show worrying signs of malfunction. Lighting it was quite some work, and the glass front of the hatch has to bee kept in place with duct tape. I guess you know what they say about things that cant be repaired with duct tape: "If you can't duck it, ..." Well, we seem to be able to keep the oven for yet another day or two.

Read Rasmus' full story...

In other news, a gale from south-east (the wrong direction, that is) hit the raft and caused havoc on the deck of Tupac. The kitchen has now been moved indoors for protection. On the map, you can see that the rafts are being pushed northwards by these winds.

I am a hunter, harvesting the nature. I love to eat meat or fish that I have brought home from the nature, and spearfishing used to be one of my favorite activities when I was an active scuba diver. Sportfishing is great, and I very much appreciate the nobel art of flyfishing and I may also release fish when the situation is right for that. BUT I also love to fill up my freezer with fish I have caught. I really appreciate to see that you finally are catching quite well from the KonTiki rafts, with the fishing equipment I provided from PENN/ABU/Berkley and introduced to you in Peru. Keep up the good activities. Catch the fish with your spears, on the gaff, trolling and casting for fish from the rafts. Get the excitement, the photos and videos, the good food and NEVER let there be a single moment without having two lines with hooks in the water from the rafts. You will catch more fish, and I look forward to see the results on photos and video.

The first picture shows Dr Hook with hopeful students at the Escuela Naval in Lima in October 2015. The second picture is an underwater photograph of fish being caught from the raft, using equipment provided by Dr.Hook.

The big happening this morning was a giant molamola, trying to race Tupac for a few minutes with its huge fin waving from side to side, the tip just above the surface. The raft kept 3 knots and won the competition, and the molamola gave up before Erik jumped into the water. The massive white body in the sea must have weighed almost a ton!

[Signe's email address is captain.rahiti@myiridium.net. Only very small attachments get through the satellite connections]

Today is the 8th of March and the crew of Tupac wants to send our wishes for women nearby! Dear Signe, Liv and Lisa! We miss you all and love you! We wish you dry clothes, sleeping bags and good winds! For Liv and Lisa we also wish some fresh fish. Have a great day!

Liv writes:

On behalf of the women on the Kon-tiki2 expedition we wish all female followers a great March 8th! The three of us feel very privileged to be on this adventure. Before this expedition, Lisa and I came back from a two-month expedition on the river Ganges in India. We are all aware of the millions of women in India and all over the world need our support to get education and a better life. Our day? Sergej got four fish this morning! The three of us also got a big plate of Russian chocholade each from Jevgenej!

The picture shows the three women on the Rahiti Tane raft, from right to left: Liv, Signe, and Lisa.

When the wind and the weather gets rough, a rope or a brace is breaking, they know what to do and repair it with skills and knots in few minutes. Ola, the captain on Tupac has also his background from the same school, his father was the boatbuilding teacher for eighteen years. Onboard with him are also the expedition leader Torgeir and Roberto that have both sailed a raft before with the Tangaroa expedition in 2006. Former students of the same school built the rafts in Peru. So if you are intetested learning these skills and more; check in on www.fosen.fhs.no

The shows Captain Signe and Rasmus in good teamwork on the aft deck.

In picture 1, Rahiti's monkey mascot Balsa prefers to stay inside with his colouring book. In picture 2, Lisa is fishing. Picture 3 shows Liv in her reading cave.

When I am thinking or mulling over some issues, I enjoy stroking my full beard. It is pleasant to gently push the hairs with the back of my hand and feel a bit of a tickle when the tip of the hairs touch the skin of my chin.

Read story...

In the picture, Captain Ola Borgfjord (left) and Torgeir Higraff enjoy some carefully packaged popcorn.

Is Liv Bored?

Liv has started to get emails from friends and family with the questions: Are you bored? How do you cope with the inactivity? What do you do? What do you miss? As a landlubber, how do you cope out there? Read her answer, and find out what she misses most!

Full story...

Full story...

Instead of the traditional "ping" of the sonar of submarines from the 70s, the sonars for ecological research on board TY transmit a siren-like sound into the water and can detect plankton up to a few millimeters long at 500m depth. This new technology is broadband, frequecy-modulated (FM) and provides better resolution than traditional "ping", echosounders. Over the last few days, the Tupacs have analyzed the migration of species from deeper to shallower waters and vice versa.

With broad band signals, acoustic fingerprints can be recorded from each individual. It is possible to identify species by the echo they produce, this is, by analizing "how do they echo" the signal that TY transmits. This, together with the activities performed on the sister vessel Rahiti Tane, help the scientists build a more complete frame of the pelagic ecosystem in the middle of the south east Pacific. Later on, these echosounders will describe biotic diversity in the Humboldt current, near the American continent.

[In the first picture, the by-now bearded author can be seen with Tupac's sail. Picture 2-4 show echosounds while at the SIMA shipyard in Peru. Picture 4 is a screenshot of the software calibrating the echsounders, while the last picture shows an ascent of plankton during the night at different intervals. The green plumes are sound scatterers moving from 500m and upwards over time.]

The bread rolls became dinner, and served as buns for a our lentil burgers, with enough for 3 each. The cinnamon rolls following dinner were coming out of the oven warm and the cinnamon and sugar warmed your insides and you felt like a child at the bakery. We previously had all dreamed about the food comas that would be induced on return to our homes, we never thought that the same food coma could occur out here on our raft eating the same food we have been dreaming about!

Even the biggest of eaters Sergey passed on another round of cinnamon rolls, and for the last hour we have all sat around the deck like beached whales, trying to move our food babies to a more comfortable position. Rasmus was persistent though and pushed us on with 'get your Obama on 'YES WE CAN!'. But alas we couldn't finish it all, with cinnamon rolls littering the galley and more in the oven, we gave in and let our stomachs rest, with the thought that tomorrow is another day. This has been another great day in the Pacific Ocean and the Rahiti Tane crew are happier than ever.

The moon fish (Mola mola) is a large planktivore, one of the largest fish species known. It is regularly encountered in tropical waters and an attraction in ecotourism due to its colossal dimensions. However, the individual seen in the pictures measured around 70cm total length. Its relatively small size and high curiosity about the raft and the swimmers around it might be indicatives of a juvenile, immature, and careless about predators. Furthermore, a pelagic environment with temperate (as opposed to tropical) waters, like that TY is sailing on now, might be a safer location for a young to grow to maturity before it heads to its preferred adult habitat. Interestingly, the last 3 days, the Kongsberg echosounders had picked up the signal of "something" that has been sailing with the raft at around 50m. This "something" in the echogram matched the acoustic characteristics of a bony fish. Then, the mola mola could be that "something", feeding on the layer of plankton (also being studied with the echosounders) and sheltering itself with the raft. More sightings of this fellow could confirm that the Tupacs have a new type of follower and company.

One hour later the team experienced a peculiar event. The albatross that has been visiting the raft every day the last week decided to land. He (we assume it is a male) was very interested in the safety buoy. Several times he used his beak, gently touching the yellow buoy. This lasted until Erik decided to get closer to the giant bird by swimming underwater. The albatross sensed something and flied up in the air, a second before Erik popped up from the ocean.

Both animals are of the largest kind in their group. We cherished a day with giants.

As at today we have two onions left, enough potatoes for 3 meals and we are starting to get into our dried and tinned products as we make our way into week 7. We had been lucky enough to not only catch a mahimahi the previous week, we also have a school of small fish that follow the raft and Mr Orlav our Russian photographer has been catching these for dinner when they are active. Signe has been a master chef again and spoilt us with lentil burgers on our sail down day and they were the best burgers we had ever eaten, couple that with some wedges and we had an amazing dinner plated on Sunday!

The Chocolate mudcake has become a staple treat and everyones eyes light up when Rasmus offers to make it for us. It just keeps getting better and better. We celebrated reaching the roaring forties and being east of easter island with falafels for dinner, and also treated oursleves to Cappucino's that Signe had brought for all of us and Norwegian Marzipan pigs from Asker. Needless to say, we were a smiling happy crew. We have also had a new crew member Erland who swapped from Tupac with Pedro for the week, he is not regretting the move having caught our best food week yet! Here is our menu:

• Thursday - Mahimahi prepared 2 ways with rice, Sashimi and, Garlic and Lemon infused seared pieces
• Fri - Indian Daal
• Sat - Spaghetti bolognese
• Sun - Lentil burgers with sides of wedges
• Mon - Coconut curry beans with rice, accompanied by Russian Seared Fish
• Tues - Faves aux vin a la pacifique with baked bread and mudcake
• Wed - Pacific garlic and onion soup
• Thurs - Falafels with rice
• Fri - Potato and bean curried soup
• Sat - Spaghetti bolognese

Coming to the end of Week 6, I am undertaking another stocktake of all food on board to be sure of quantities as we look ahead 5-6 weeks. Making sure that we have enough food to carry us through is important and we need to be on top of this more than ever. We have had a loss of 10kg of rice to the sea due to water inside bags and boxes, and we are now holding food in stronger bags and boxes so this doesn't happen again. Our oven is also beginning to deteriorate, so in anticipation of its complete demise we are now baking bread everyday, and saving other food for later. Signe, Rasmus and I have been taking turns on our watches to get bread baked for lunch. The smell of bread wafting through the raft in the early hours is heavenly out here. We have a few weeks left and we are keeping spirits up and bellies full as we push East to Chile!

Credit for this activity is attributed to Andrey Chesnokov. Gladly, almost every other day, he stops whatever he is doing to deploy a net known as the manta trawl astern of TY. It is a "manta" because it filters particles from the sea surface in a similar way than that one the elasmobranch named after does. After two hours of trawling, Andrei retrieves the net and analyses the contents for plastics. The task is not easy and is time consuming. He finds plastics among plankton, stingy jellyfish tentacles, fish, eggs of many species and the parts of the vessel, sysal rope and balsa wood, as it disintegrates in the cruise. In this occasion, featued in the picture, an amphipod was caught among the sample contents.

Identification of the types of plastics that reach this remote locations help researchers in the fields of material technology to canalize efforts to develop better substitutes for those polymers that endure through time and do not degrade easily, and yet provide us with the daily life commodity of plastics. In this way, the kontiki2 expedition serves as an opportunity vessel and provides NIVA and NTNU with valuable samples for quality research. After the time consuming process of sorting contents out, Andrey prepares the net for the next deployment and awaits eagerly until is time for it. As the vessel approaches the continent, the task might become more and more interesting.

The last couple of days have been some of the best since we left for South America. The moderate downwind has been steady for a longer period than ever before, the steering has been almost automatic, Tupac has been well within sight, fish are jumping into our pot, and the sun has been shining while the temperature has remained pleasant. This was not what I thought I could expect when I joined the expedition, but definitely what I hoped for. We have mended all the decks and things would have been perfect, if it was not for that worrying sound from the mast.

I'm afraid that I will have to be a bit technical at this point. Depending on the craft a mast can have many different positions, shapes and characteristics (in most cases they point more or less upwards). The masts of our two balsa rafts are pretty plain however and are supposed to point straight upwards. Yet, having a rigging of natural fiber poses a problem. The ropes are very prone to stretch, and in order to keep the mast in place, we have to tighten the stays and shrouds as soon as they become slack. Stretching stays is not a challenge in its own, but the rigging is designed to put up with strong downwinds. Therefore, we have 4 shrouds and 2 backstays, in total 6 points, that are all keeping the mast from moving forward (while also balancing it sideways). On the other hand, the position of the sail does not allow us to have more than 2 forestays, that prevent the mast from moving backwards. In the long run, this means that every time we tighten the stays and shrouds, this bias will, little by little, lean the mast backwards. The crew of the first leg got aware of the problem, so before we left Easter Island we made sure that the mast was leaning a lot forward. However, we did not know if we would have the possibility to repeat the procedure while at open sea.

The last couple of days, the mast has started to make squeaking sounds, which has been an indicator that it is starting to lean too much backwards. However, the forestays have been tight, not allowing any shortening, while the aft stays and shrouds have become more and more slack. Yet, as explained above, we have felt reluctant to tighten them. As a temporary solution Signe decided to move one of the shrouds a bit forward on port side, but the sail prevented us from doing the same on starboard side, and it was not a permanent solution anyhow. So yesterday, fueled by lentil patty burgers and good weather, we finally decided to take the bull by the horns and see if we could make the mast lean forward. However, to be able to do so we had to give some slack in the shrouds and aft stays, and we also had to lower the sail as the halyard functions as a stay in itself when the sail is hoisted all the way up. Even though the conditions were good, it was a bit scary to give up some of the control over the movements of the mast, and it was moving quite considerably. As Signe and I started to work, Liv was quick to join in. Lisa had to take over Liv's job while she was recovering after I banged my shoulder to her forehead (by mistake, I swear) whilst tying a rolling hitch. She recovered quickly and eventually everybody on board got involved in the stretching of the stays. In the end we managed to get the mast upright and the noises dissipated. It might seem like a small detail, but the knowledge that it was possible made us all really happy. As we got rid of one worrying factor, we took a small step on the way to that "live in the present" paradise. Thats all the worries for now, unless we come up with some new problems ... which I doubt will be very hard!

We have had a really fun week overall experimenting with cakes and food, but the highlight of the week would have to be that Sergey caught our first fish. A nice sized Dorado (Mahimahi) that fed the troop for a good couple of days. The first meal was fried fish mexican style for lunch, then a Mahimahi Russian Boullion at dinner and ending with a version of NZ Fish and chips, served with a lemon and caper dressing, was all divine and pretty special to be eating such a delicacy out here, fresh and in the open ocean. Being close to Norwegian celebration for Easter Signe made 2 dozen "boller" buns for the crew. They were the best buns I have eaten in a long time, and she baked these whilst trying to repair decking and getting our raft back in shape after the gale.

I tried a Lemon Drizzle Cake recipe from home, which was delicious. Light fluffy cake with a hint of lemon, drizzled with a lemon sugar syrup that seeped through the cake and giving the delicate cake a real zing. Rasmus' Chocolate Mud Cake was Signes cake request on her birthday, with her favourite pasta for dinner, and a spoil from Liv of Norwegian Goat Cheese for lunch. Liv and I were on watch that morning and she had to listen to our beautiful birthday singing as we served her a cappucino and almond cake as a pre-breakfast treat. Our dinners would look good on any table this week and we ate like kings!

• Thurs - Falafel, honeybaked potatoes, quinoa and lentils and Lemon Drizzle Cake for dessert
• Fri - Indian Daal with White Rice
• Sat - Spaghetti Bolognese
• Sun - Lentilles aux vin a la Pacifique and "boller" buns
• Mon - Coconut Curry with Peruvian Beans on White Rice
• Tues - Dorado, NZ fish and chips with Lemon and Caper Dressing and Mahimahi Boullion
• Wed - Creamy Garlic and Mushroom Spaghetti and Dr Fredrik Wikström Chocolate Mud Cake for dessert

The one meal that often gets a little short of creativity at the moment is lunch. We make fresh bread every second day, but we lose a bit of inspiration to pair it with a dish. So the effort this week will be focusing on lunch ideas and getting a bit more inspired about what to make at this time of the day.

So far the maneuver had gone very well. Captain Ola on Tupac steered the raft well past Rahiti and onwards - full control. We were just a tiny bit to slow in realizing that their yellow safety line passed under our raft and got stuck on a guaraboard. During the first leg of Kontiki2 Ola and David devised a challenge. It was to jump into the water in front of the raft, dive down and swim under the raft, coming back up in the wake aft of the raft. The faster the raft sailed the easier it would get. This was a fun game, and we soon needed new challenges. The next was to dive down in the aft, swim forward and grab onto one of the guaraboards under water. Yesterday this went from being a game to being a very useful skill, as the only way to free the safety line was by pulling it off the guaraboards from below. The pressure from the line was so great that it wasn't possible to just lift the guara. Pedro and I jumped into the water with divingmasks and little by little freed the line from guaras and scientific equipment.

The plan is to have Erlend stay with us on Rahiti for a few days before delivering him back to his fellows on Tupac.

In a beaufort 0 sea state, the sea surface mirrors clouds when seen from above or fish and plankton from below the water. Diurunal plankton that are not very afraid of being eaten in plain daylight, are easy to spot. The neuston and pleuston are groups within plankton that drift on or right underneath, respectively, the surface; they sail with the wind. A flat sea allowed the observer to easily spot some species in these groups. The siphonophore man'owar is commonly encountered in the sea, but also on board RT. There are others like that jellyfish portrayed in the picture next to the raft. That day, a navy of hundreds of individuals surrounded the vessel. However, a stationary raft allowed for more.

Five stones attached to a CTD were casted down from the port side of RT. A time lapse of the enduring actvivity was taken from the mast, and one photo is shared. an electric motor is installed in the rafts center. It assists with the retrieval of instruments. One member creates tension on the spool side, starboard, of the motor. Anotjer one loops the excess because the line is retrieved faster than it is rolled into the bobbin. This is specially noticeable when all the line, approx 3.5km, is out and each coil is around the bobbins axel diameter only. One more rotates the bobbin by the sail to store the line. This process improves everytime and the crew becomes more and more experienced in deep casting. 2.8km of water where profiled. The stones came back full of sand and the bathymetric map indicates a depth between 2.7 and 3.1km. A sunset clean to the horizon, with stratocumulus clouds at mid heights, dorados jumping in the background, and a warm fish dinner were the reward for the hard working crew.

Personally I'm way to impatient to spend more than 3 minutes with a fishing rod, so I'm impressed by Pedro that spent hour after hour trying to catch one. First with little success, but all of a sudden one early morning a hungry dorado actually took the bait! Pedro struggled to get it close enough so that we could grab it with the hook, but unfortunately, the fish got away. The bait was taken two times more but our prey managed to escape both times. Pedro looked frustrated and as the sun rose, it seemed like the dorados got uninterested.

Inspired by the almost successful attempts of Pedro, Sergey grabs a rod. It takes a couple of minutes, the sea surface is dead calm, the sun is slowly climbing the sky. But somewhere beneath the surface a dorado cannot resist the bait any more and Sergey shouts that he has something on the hook. Pedro, that has not lost his hunting instinct, grabs the large hook and quick as a cobra he managed to hook the fish before it swims under the raft. Once its on board, we try to get a towel over the eyes of the dorado, a way to make them calm according to our fishery mentor Jimmy aboard Tupac. We did not really get the towel where we wanted, but eventually we manage to get the fish under control.

It was with great happiness two of the main characters of the drama posed with the third one, that by this time was not able to feel anything at all. "Omega 3 vitamin" Sergey concluded with the 118 cm dorado in his hand and a smile almost as wide upon his face. Even when working as a fisherman, our ship doctor is always concerned about the health of his fellow crew members.

The rest of the crew smiled almost as wide when Pedro served garlic fried fresh dorado for lunch, and I found myself jiggling of joy when Lisa later served fish and chips for dinner. Bones and fins were cooked into a Russian styled bouillon, while Pedro kindly provided the rest of the fish some space in the scientific freezer for later consumption.

The morning begins with coffee made in a coffee pot, surprises and presents to her who sleeps least of all, gets tired most of all, every moment understanding, like any other captain, that she will be the first who will see a rock that might come out of the fog and the last who will leave the raft in case (Heaven forbid!) it is destroyed.

Lunch with freshly-baked bread and Norwegian cheese which has been in store for this day smoothly slides into dinner and swimming among crowds of birthday guests surrounding the raft – here we can see jellyfish of all shades, alone and in groups, crabs aiming at getting closer to the festive table and climbing right on our legs, spies from submarines (in fact this is our filmmaker Evgeny), small shoals of fish bustling in and out between the logs and groups of big dorados which create a festive atmosphere with their rainbow colors...

The presents are being taken out of the dark corners, not expensive, but very nice and unique because they weren't bought in advance but became presents here on the raft. Rasmus is putting a chocolate cake made by himself into the oven. The music pouring out from small acoustic speakers is turned down a bit and before supper we've prepared a real performance played by all the crewmates. Now let's get started to a guitar accompaniment...

Doctor Goltsov:
Hello, hello, my names Joe Monroe.
And I'm calling from Indiana.
Can I speak to Diana, please?
Am I speaking to my Diana?

Liv replies:
Oh, no, no, no! I'm not Diana.
I think you have got
The wrong number, my friend,
You've dialed the Rahiti Tane.

Rasmus, once again:
Hello, hello, my names Joe Monroe.
And I'm calling from Indiana.
Can I speak to Diana, please?
Am I speaking to my Diana?

Lisa, keeping on playing the guitar, in a whining voice:
Oh, no, no, no! I'm not Diana.
I think you have got
The wrong number, my friend,
You've dialed the Rahiti Tane.

Pedro can't rest:
Hello, hello, my names Joe Monroe.
And I'm calling from Indiana.
Can I speak to Diana, please?
Am I speaking to my Diana?

The filmmaker Evgeny filming all that:
Stop, stop, stop, stop... :)

And all together, in chorus:
Oh, no, no, no! There is no Diana!
You've dialed the birthday party 
Of Signe Meiling
Captain of Rahiti Tane!

Curtain-down. :)

We all ran to the edge of the raft to have a closer look. Although I was safely standing on the deck, looking down on the big fish (around 2,5 meter long) when it swam by the raft less than a meter away, I felt both in awe and some chills along my back bone. Regardless of being on the upside of the water surface, my brain had no problems what so ever to imagine how it would feel to meet that razor-toothed hunter in the water. The perfectly shaped body, agile and fast, with the sharp and deadly end coming towards me. I imagined me, trying to get out of the water in a clumsy fashion, waving with all the limbs and pieces that might pose as an interesting bait for the predator from the deep seas. I wonder if I will dare to see a generic pirate movie ever again.

At least dr Goltsov does not have to worry about treating me for lost limbs due to shark attacks. From now on I will benefit from the rafts many options to wash ones self, in the safe space between the cross section balsa logs, protected by the long ship balsa logs that run below. Just another benefit of sailing a vessel that is half way submerged.

The worst damage was on our port side, where equipment weighing around 400 kg was lifted. The decks under the equipment fell down between the logs, and so the water plywood box with water bottles, deepsea robot and more fell down between the logs as well. The wave also created a large hole in the deck under the galley, and broke several other decks.

The wave was not a polite and shy visitor, it forced its way into the cabin as well. Several bed boxes fell down between the logs as a result of this, giving people a very crooked and unstable bed for the night. The fact that all our sleeping bags and clothes also got wet didn't make the situation any better, and it was a cold and dreary night.

Early Sunday morning the wind both eased and turned SE, and so we took the sail down. Sunday was spent repairing, a slow process in the complete chaos. After a long day of work the raft started looking like a raft again, and it's now possible to walk on deck again rather than jump from box to box between the debris. Today, Monday the work continues, repairing the decks under the galley and outside the cabin door, where there is now only a large hole.

Damage aside, we sailed far during the gale. In the 24 hours between midnight Friday and midnight Saturday we sailed 81.2 nautical miles! We made it to 37° 39' south! Now we face a new challenge: the forecast says we'll have close to no wind for the next five days. At least that gives us time to repair and get ready for the next round.

Ola started the rescue operation by ordering two reefs in the sail. There was no damage to rig nor sail. Erik and Torgeir has their personal spoons and cups. The rest of the guys need to find more creative ways of eating soup. Dinner today at Tupac is Real Turmat.

In the first picture, Roberto is seen with the dismantled kitchen on deck. Picture 2 and 3 show a dynamic sea around the Tupac Yupanqui raft.

As a tribute to Yuri Senkevich, Torgeir Higraff, the leader of Kon-Tiki 2 mission, has invited two Russian doctors — Boris Romanov and Sergey Goltsov — to participate in his project. Boris Romanov sailed aboard Rahiti Tan from South America to Rapa Nui, and Sergey Goltsov took his place on the raft for the second leg of the expedition. Both have proved to fit well in Senkevich's shoes. Qualified doctors with extensive experience in athletic and extreme medicine, they are also investing substantial time and effort in making the expedition more visible to the public.

Sergey Goltsov is a storytelling gem. His daily reports (that keep coming in spite of poor connection and other technical difficulties) are full of vivid metaphors and poetic imagery to convey the power of the Ocean and emotional diversity of the team. 'Just another regular day on the raft' becomes a real adventure for lucky Russian readers! Boris Romanov is a truly charismatic presenter. Upon his return from Rapa Nui to Moscow, he was interviewed several times and has recently hosted a mind-blowing public presentation at the State Darwin Museum. Boris showed some pictures of Kon-Tiki 2 and told stories — abundant with detail and medical humor. «I decided to rather be a bad sailor than a good doctor, and it worked. We didn't have many health emergencies, I suck at tying knots, the fish is afraid of me, so I mostly did the dishes and assisted the heroic women of Rahiti Tane in handling night watches and navigation». Boris has compared managing the guara boards with playing a trombone, but he himself is a saxophone person and prefers a different approach to raft sailing. He says one should let the raft sail with the wind and the current, then adjust the course substantially, and keep sailing with minimal interference. Exhausted with constant humidity and having lost 12 kilos of weight, Boris already dreams of going back. He is convinced that Kon-Tiki 2 will accomplish its mission and reach South America, even if it happens later than expected. We stay tuned for Sergey Goltsov's reports!

[The pictures above were taken during Boris' speech in the State Darwin Museum in Moscow last week. Except the first, that is: Boris played the saxophone before the Kon-Tiki2 expedition]

Sometimes it does not pay off in a culinary way though, as when a Portuguese man of war (a type of jellyfish) yesterday got stuck in the wakes between the logs in the aft. The waves threw it back and forth tearing the tentacles of the poor thing. When it was disarmed a little wave served it to us by lifting it up on the decks. An excellent opportunity for taking pictures of this fascinating creature that occasionally has passed us by the last few weeks. Pedro, eventually picked it up with a pincer for a closer examination and now the little predator is lying in state inside a plastic bottle on our deck.

From a nutritional point of view, we had better luck last night when a 25 cm squid took a hike aboard the raft. Liv caught it and thought it could be used as bait later on. Well, for the lazy fisherman it is also a possibility to eat the bait yourself. Pedro took the opportunity to show off his Jamie Oliver skills, by slicing up and frying the squid in oil. We added some garlic and had soy sauce as a salivating dip. O, the taste was almost divine! Would have been a waste to feed it to the dorados.

By the way, the animal life is increasing in abundance around the raft as we go south, to more productive waters. Besides the already mentioned dorados, of which we saw one jumping after fly fish yesterday, sea birds are becoming increasingly common. And today we also saw an albatross. It would be fun to see whales again though. In that case, let's hope that Jimmy does not get too inspired by captain Ahab and grabs the nearest harpoon.

During a regular night watch the observer can get attracted to bioluminiscent organisms in the sea. These are animals and plants that generate light when perturbed by the raft. One of our activities is to collect them. We are equipped with a net that has a very small grid. When the wind is weak, we don't move very fast. This is the ideal condition to deploy the net so that it doesn't brake from pulling too much. Also the specimens inside do not get crushed by a strong pulling raft. After an hour of patience we can collect the surface plankton sample. In a lab, we will be able to analyze them under the microscope.

We also filter out of the water the organisms that are capable of using the sun to generate their own food, the phytoplankton. They give us an idea of how much oxygen is produced and how much the pelagic ecosystem can produce; they are the basis of the food web. Finally, we extract DNA out of the water. The sea is a soup of cells and bacteria. They represent a library of genes available in the ocean. It is there in the blue, but we can't see it with our eyes. While Tupaq extracts macrofauna, dorados, to eat them, we extract microflora and fauna from the sea to study them.

In the first picture, you can see a greenish circle in the filter. This is condensed evidence that we are surrounded and outnumbered in the middle of the Pacific. The net is one of the tools provided by NIVA to help us better understand our environment. The photographic material is a courtesy of Evgenij Orlov.

Last week was a week with low pressure and rainshowers. Everything got humid. Saturday the sun came back and we dried out sleeping bags and clothes. We have a dream to reach the fourties on February, 10th, which is Captain Signe's birthday. To do so, we need maximum luck with the winds. No matter our position, we are looking forward to the birthday party!

The last two days I've been reading Steven Callahan and John Caldwell's books. Callahan survived 76 days on a lifeboat after his boat sank. He survived thanks to his practical skills and mental strength. Caldwell, who had no sailing experience, bought a sailboat in Panama after the last world war to get to his wife in Australia. On his way he practised and learned to sail and navigate. His mast broke in a storm and he drifted for months. He managed to catch a few fish and birds, but also cooked his military boots, his belt, ate lipstick and drank motor oil to survive. Recommended books for sailors and armchair sailors.

Then, today, amidst the biggest waves and the strongest winds of the second leg. It appeared again. A quiet small female Dorado, playing in the waves along the raft. Almost surfing. It's beautiful emerald body shining beneath the surface. The Penn rod was ready to be used. But as soon as I had it in my hand ready to pursue, the Dorado was gone. Cursed! I assumed a position overlooking the windward side of our raft. Sun from behind me to be able to see my prey. After about twenty minutes a much bigger bull dorado appeared as a silhouette in one of the waves. When the waves are high enough you can actually se the fish inside the towering wave. Like an aquarium. I made a cast maybe ten meters in front of the bull. He darted forward and took the bait. Like out of reflex. I tried to set the hook but the bait came flying at me. The Dorado disappeared. I threw again and again. But he seemed Uninterested. Or maybe he had felt the hook and didn't like it. Who would?

I changed tactics and used a small fish with a Mustad circle hook. Letting it skip just at the surface. Minutes turned to hours. When suddenly the bull came thrashing trough the waves towards my bait. But for some reason the bull shone away. Lurking some ten meters away. I tried to cast the bait closer. He pursued trying to take it. I free lined to let him take it easier. He took it. With the circle hook you should not set the hook. Just tighten the line. I let him almost swallow the bait before I did that. I could feel his weight. But he didn't seem to react. Just swam lazily away. I put on some pressure, he answered with a forceful rush of fifty meters ending in a spectacular jump. He took line as if it was nothing. When he had taken some three hundred meters I managed to get him to start swimming along the raft rather than from it. A big win since he had already taken all the fireline. Just some monofilament line to protect the spool left. He continued to jump. Wasting a lot of his energy. I gained little, but so did he. After a while he decided to go deep. I lost what little line I had and was forced to apply all pressure needed to stop him. He caved before the equipment or I did.

The most critical moment was still to come. The landing. Thanks to the steely nerves of the Tupac crew we managed to gaff him and put a towel around his head with ease. Dorados suddenly stop flapping about when you do that. Odd. The drama took maybe twenty minutes. The fish being rather big, just as the waves and the wind today. As we fishermen say when we caught one: tails up!

The temperature in abyssal depths drops to 2 degrees in the Celcius scale. Three and a half hours of footage were recorded during the cast by the spherical glass-housed Deepbot. Equipped with two intense led strobes, the deepbot brought to the surface visual evidence of plankton, marine snow and possibly macrofauna, which can be situated with its depth and water physical properties: oxygen, fluorescence, and salinity. A shiny sea surface around the raft, illuminated by the strobes in the middle of an overcast dark night, was a rewarding landscape for the crew indicating the near conclusion of the operation. Both instruments are ready for the next dive. The following morning allowed the overexcercised crew to rest through a pleasant morning, and a harmonius sunrise with a delightfully calm sea.

The picture is a courtesy by our photographer Orlov. The crew gathers around the instruments to celebrate an exciting and demanding activity on board.

[Håkon adds, from a dry place on land: congratulations to Pedro and the Rahiti crew! You have achieved something truly remarkable in the history of oceanography. You beat our previous record of 2046 metres, and you did so with a huge payload, in the dark! The knots on the rope are unfortunate artefacts stemming from the kevlar spaghetti, but I'm happy that the triple fishermen we tied are holding up. Remember, there's a video projector on Tupaq Yapanqi which can project the deep-water footage on the mainsail!]

What is the correct way? After some good wind, we decided to take down the sail and just drift. The wind is now east/south but it's supposed to go back to northern later today. The picture of Torgeir shows how we are trying to keep a good mood by doing silly things.

Signe writes:

Sailing from 30 to 40 degrees south is a bit like playing red light green light. The area is dominated by a large high pressure system and every few days a small low pressures passes by, from west to east. This means that we have two or three days of good northwesterly wind until it all of a sudden weakens and turns to southwest, then southeast. After about 12 hours it comes back to northwest. Having vessels that sail relatively slow and can't beat very close to the wind our tactics so far have been to lower the sail whenever we're no longer able to sail towards the south, and wait. The idea is that we will not drift as far north as we would have sailed north with this wind. As soon as the wind turn back in our favour we hoist the sail and sail as fast and far as we can before the next round of southerly winds. Both rafts lowered their sail last night, and hopefully the wind will turn during the day today. Meanwhile we patiently wait.

The second picture shows Lisa playing the guitar.

We have worked our way though a lot of our fresh fruit and veges and said good bye to the final bananas on Friday. As a treat I made 2 Banana Loaves for Thursday and Friday. It flooded me with memories of New Zealand, we have a cake and tea culture and I could imagine sitting in my grandmothers kitchen eating cake, drinking tea and chatting about random events at home. The smiles that the loaf put on people's faces, it felt like total luxury to be eating such a treasure.

Our fresh vege list is potatoes, onions and lemons. We are being creative and inspiring as we can when it comes to the use of these ingredients and I am continually impressed about how well we eat here on Rahiti Tane. Here is a snapshot of our dinners of the last week:

• Thursday - Papas con Chorizo
• Friday - Rice and Beans in Peanut Sauce
• Saturday - Spaghetti Bolognese
• Sunday - Spicy Aloo Stew
• Monday - Quinoa Balls with Rice and Sprouted Lentils
• Tuesday - Mexican Lentil Soup with Fries
• Wednesday - NZ Baked Beans with Smashed Potatoes

As we head into weather that is wet and damp, we have started introducing more snacks and even had an evening of Hot Chocolate and story telling. One thing we have done well on our raft, is to make sure that we have food events that we can look forward to. Chocolate on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, are a treat the crew never let me forget, but also when we hit a milestone like 30 degrees latitude we had a whole lot of snacks and popcorn to celebrate. We are looking forward to a few more events on the horizon to break out some new cuisine and tantalise our taste buds!

Also, we decided to improve ambience on Tupac. We probably got a little tired from the rubber boots swinging under the ceiling and from the perpetually damp towels. In a word, we felt like we needed a sprinkling of art around us. Now one of the cabin walls is serving as a gallery of children's drawings. It feels great and very touching to see a bunch of bearded guys hanging up the drawings painstakingly colored with bright markers and pencils. All the pictures are very meaningful and, most importantly, sincere. They make us think of home. The subjects are simple. But look at these rafts, tropical trees, fish and huge whales! That's exactly what they look like in children's imagination. Thanks to Paula, Sverre, Kate, and Pete for raising our spirits! These pictures are now much dearer to us than works of the most famous masters.

Yesterday however, we had wind speeds of about 11 m/s (5-6 beaufort) and the waves were growing bigger. High waves are not a problem per se, it depends on the wave length. As long as a wave has the time to pass before the next one arrives, the raft is just gently lifted and tilted. However, when there is a short wave coming, it breaks over the aft and if you are unlucky, some water is pressed through any hole in the floor of the hut and splashed into your face.

This was the case last night, and while I was lying in my bed, trying to be unconcerned about the occasional involuntary face washes, I came up with a possible solution. Luseplatting! (Update: "baggywrinkle" in English) It is an arrangement made out of small pieces of rope tied to a rope and it ends up looking like a elongated toilet brush; or Mark Zuckerberg's dog, I've been told. Usually it is used to protect things such as sails or gaffs from unnecessary chafing, but I thought it could do the trick as sealing compound as well.

Highly motivated, Lisa and I managed to produce about 5 m of luseplatting during the night watch, and we ended up with two fluffy things that almost looked like pets. Despite their cute appearance and look of appeal, we quickly stowed them away in a hole in the deck along the wall of the hut, where the sea previously had found its way in. It was a great success, and my two hobbies were suddenly not in conflict any more. Liv has now produced her first luseplatting, and I believe that it might soon be the latest craze aboard Rahiti Tane.

In Erik's first picture above, you can see the diving board on Tupac Yupanqui. The second picture shows one of the local residents: a small crab has hitched a ride on the raft.

• Thursday: Potato hashcakes with sweet 'n' sour taro snd rice, salad
• Friday: Rosti with bean stew
• Saturday: Spaghetti wit creamed mushroom sauce
• Sunday: sweet 'n' sour vegetables
• Monday: Moros con cristianos (rice and beans mexican style)
• Tuesday: Curry with rice
• Wednesday: Potatoes with mushroom stew

We bake bread every second day, and it's getting better and better. We are sure to win the breadbaking competition started by Torgeir on Tupac! As the third week starts we are in high spirits, we have passed 30 degrees south, we have more books to read and more vegetables to eat. All is good. We have finally managed to finish the bananas, even our monkey mascot Balsa is sick of bananas. These final three will become banana loaf later today.

The picture shows the screen of the Jotron AIS transceiver which also doubles as a GPS, now declaring 30 degrees south!

We started with the cabin floor. During our island layover we have reinforced the floor taking into account some of the issues we faced during the first leg of our journey. The problem is that the beam sea would sometimes cause upward splashes through floor cracks inside the cabin. Being merely unpleasant for crew members (especially at nighttime, as it means drying sleeping bags the morning after), such a shower is a disaster for naviagtion and video equipment! Our enhancements did work, but the waves are still there, so we had to repair a fragment of the floor near the command bridge. Then we focused on the rear deck, which suffered most. The waves keep hitting bamboo decking that Heikki, Heidi, Boris and I invested so much time and effort in. Some bamboo planks have split and splintered, some ropes have torn. Not looking good at all. We rescued what could be rescued and tried to prevent further bamboo desintegration. If things get any worse we will have to use a part of front deck planks for repair. The front deck is feeling much better. Additionally, we have washed our solar power units and handled the waste, including empty water bottles.

To reward ourselves for a pretty productive day, we lounged in the newly installed front deck hammock and celebrated with some delicious spaghetti, sauce and mushrooms.

Two weeks at sea, and having a great journey!

The team tested the deep launch capacity of RT. The bamboo boom that holds a pulley on the port (windward) side, resisted the tension and protected the raft. Hundreds of kevlar lines were tied to together to make the deep line on the first part of the Kon-Tiki2 expedition. Each knot represented a threat to this operation in the line under high tension. The deployment was done under course, moving at approximately 2 kn, and the deep line affected the vessel's control. Line spooling was timed, as the line is not marked for length: 30min and 2 persons to send the CTD down, 4 members and one hour to retrieve the 10kg payload. the newly installed setup holds together and adds a new capacity to RT.

The gathered data shows a smoothly decreasing temperature gradient from 24 at the surface to 6 degrees Celcius at maximum depth, the location of oxygen maximum and minimum, and a peak of fluorescence at depth. The Research Vessel Rahiti Tane is equipped with sophisticated scientific instruments from NIVA and NTNU, it has an organized and capable crew on board and will continue in the path to America with its scientific program.

Luego de 10 dias de navegacion, estamos practicamente en la misma latitud que la Isla de Pascua y unas 200 millas mas al oeste. Fue necesario rodear la Isla por el norte y tomar rumbo hacia el oeste en donde hay mas posibilades de encontrar los vientos que nos permitan ir hacia el sur hasta alcazar la latitud 40 S, conocida como "the roaring forties", donde predominan fuerte vientos con direccion al continente. El gobierno de las balsas es cada vez mas preciso y predecible. El mar, de un azul intenso, todavia no nos regala un buen pascado para refrescar nuestro menu, al que ya se le estan agotando los alimentos frescos. La poblacion de cangrejos ha aumentado a unos cuatro que se dejan ver mas una minuscula criatura que debe ser 100% kontikense. Paciencia y buen humor, este ultimo no ha declinado y esperamos mejores vientos.

In his text, Robert expains the winds and the currents, and the onboard raft population. Stay tuned for pictorial evidence.

The problem is the wind. In this area the statistics say that we should have east, north east and northerly winds. We've been experiencing south, south/southeast and southeast. A high pressure system is to the southwest of us, giving us these winds. In the southern hemisphere the winds around a high pressure system blow anticlockwise, and we seem to be at "2 o'clock" in this system. All we need is for it to move east, so that we'll be at "10 o'clock" giving us wind from northeast and east. It just doesn't seem to want to move.

In a normal year this pressure system would be placed southeast of Rapa Nui, but this is clearly not a normal year. In the end, we just have to be patient. The northerly winds will come eventually. And hey, no-one ever said this was going to be easy, right? Spirits are still high, the sun is shining and the sea temperature is a comfortable 23 degrees. No complaints there.

By Lisa and Signe

(2016-01-16) We're back at sea again, with fresh supplies of vegetables, people and energy. It was hard to get hold of large quantities of any vegetable on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) seeing as they grow almost nothing themselves, it's all flown in from mainland Chile. We did get a lot of onion and garlic, some carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers, pineapples and lemons. This is what we've had this first week:

• Thursday: Boiled potatoes, onions and fresh salad
• Friday: Curry with rice
• Saturday: Lentil burgers with rice
• Sunday: Chinese vegetables with rice
• Monday: Rice with vegetables in a peanut/coconut sauce
• Tuesday: Potato soup
• Wednesday: Chick peas in tomato-ginger sauce with rice

We've been baking bread every second day, and Tupac have started a bread-baking competition to see which raft can make the best bread. Not sure who the judge will be but we'll sure do our best to win the competition. Lisa is the steward on this leg, and she's doing a tremendous job of keeping track of how much we have of everything and where it is stored. We're probably going to be out here for a very long time so it's important to watch our consumption. One thing that we did get a lot of was chocolate! So, we have increased our chocolate intake: we now eat chocolate on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays as opposed to only Wednesdays and Saturdays on the first leg. First impressions are that Chilean chocolate is very good! So far we've been very happy about the food. Our Russian photographer often exclaims "delicious! Tastes like home!". Contrary to our hard efforts we have not caught any fish yet, even though there was one on the hook a few days ago but it simply took the bait and swam off. Will continue to work hard on this issue. We're now starting week two, and the food planning is well underway.

(2016-01-14) Torgeir writes:

We are still drifting westwards but celebrate that we see the 27 number again: 27 degrees south. The soups we got for Christmas from Asker are very popular, especially when mixed with fresh food from Easter Island. Erlend and Andrey take their job in the kitchen seriously. Making food is also what I enjoy every day. I think my survival instinct tells me to be near the food when I can. If the wind turns tomorrow we should see a new degree on the Jotron AIS every day.

In the pictures above you can see Sergey with a flying fish. Helpful hint: flying fish are edible. In Barbados, flying fish are eaten scaled, boned, and butterflied.

(2016-01-12) Torgeir writes:

Many people write me and ask why I build rafts and sail them on the ocean. There are many important answers in the why section of our web page, but I also encourage those who write me to look around and see what the raft means today, in our progressive world of growth-minded states and people. The planet today is like Easter Island in the 17th and 18th century. We kill our habitat slowly and we all know what is going to happen.

The raft is the great escape people use when they are desperate, when they risk their lives to escape from something. And they number thousands, every year. They escape from wars, poverty or politics. On the other side of the ocean they find hope. Thousands of people do not know how to make their own rafts, instead they pay others to get them to the other side.

In ancient times, the rafts were also used to escape wars, poverty, or politics. After a disaster like El Nino, earthquake, vulcano eruptions or draught, rafters were able to find new land and start a new life. Today the rafters only find more politics. The Kon-Tiki2 cannot be compared to crossings in the Mediterranean, but it is a reminder that voyages in search for a better future have taken place at all times and that they go on right now. Lucky are we on these two rafts, with no fear and no bigger worries than when the wind will come. It will come.

Today was workout day on Tupac. Also, the two rafts met. Pedro, our engineer and oceanographer, came with the photographer Jevgeny to Tupac. Pedro fixed the AIS. Torgeir and Andrey took a swim to Rahiti and met Signe, Liv, Lisa, Sergey and Rasmus there. Meanwhile Erik harpooned a small fish that we use as bait. When the visit was over the wind changed and increased, now from southeast. Great sailing the rest of the day. We try to go east but are pushed a bit north as well.

Håkon adds, from a dry place with a fast internet connection: the wind has since shifted and is coming from south-east, which is the worst possible direction. You can follow the movements on the map on the left side of the home page.

(2016-01-11) Lisa te Heuheu is a part of the Rahiti Tane crew. She is a New Zealand Māori with a passion for the environment, māori knowledge and culture and the development of all people. Together with Liv, she was recently a team member of the Access Water Ganges expedition to India. Now we are happy she's a part of our expedition! Read her blog about this new adventure called Kon-Tiki2.

During our three weeks on the island we had several gales. Now, five days at sea, we have had almost no wind and we have sailed only a few miles out from Easter Island. We can still see the volcanoes in the horizon, but now as small shadows under the big clouds. At this speed it will take us several weeks just to get to the Roaring Forties. That is where we are heading now, at the speed of "a couple in love taking a stroll pushing their babywagon in front of them". That's how Jimmy puts it. Jimmy is a 31 year old Swede who spend most of his time fishing. His experiments are good entertainment, especially when he loses his third fish into the ocean. "It is so slippery" he says laughing. I am glad these fish are were small ones he intended to use for bait. When a big dorado gets up on deck I will personally make sure it stays here. The good news is that we still have a "Happy Ship". Team Tupac has fun and does scientific tasks that are much easier to do with no wind. The three-stage sampler from NIVA works well and for the first time we can listen to the sound of 15,000 liters of seawater being pumped through the filters. We are still motivated and prepare ourselves for months at sea.

The Expedition would like to thank everyone on Easter Island for being wonderful people in a wonderful place. In particular, Jackeline Rapu Tuki and her family have been fantastic!

The second leg of the Expedition will bring the rafts back to South America. The journey will be challenging as the rafts will take a more southernly route to find favorable winds and currents. The roaring 40's may soon see visitors.

Finally we got all 14 crew members for the second leg to Easter Island. The last member to join is Evgenij Orlov who took these photos. Once again I want to highlight the support we get from the hundreds of local people we meet every day and the official support from the mayor, the governor, and the Chilean Armada. We delayed our departure because of a southerly wind which is still blowing. Tomorrow we can set sail for The Roaring Forties.

(2015-01-05) The Expedition is eager to start the second leg of the journey and head for South America. Some final preparations still need to be made. Kon-Tiki2 Expedition leader Torgeir Higraff writes:

We are getting ready to launch. For the first time in modern history, ancient style vessels will be sailing from Polynesia to South America. On Rapa Nui (Easter Island) we have met many friendly islanders and we have made some repairs on the rafts. We specially want to thank our host Jackeline Rapu Tuki and her family for helping us with many issues, and the mayor Pedro Pablo Edmunds Paoa for providing us with fruits and vegetables from the islanders for the return leg.

In the picture, mayor Pedro Pablo Edmunds Paoa meets with Lisa and Torgeir.

[Update: some hours later, all crew members are onshore enjoying a fantastic welcome — food and drinks included — organized by our friends on Rapa Nui! The pictures below shows how wonderful grass feels, how good it is to be at Jacqueline's fabulous party, and the Rahiti crew at buoy]

Some first reactions from the crew:

• Bora: I'm very very happy to see Rapa Nui!
• Øyvin: We did it, by refining guara board techniques!
• Torgeir: Epic, not to be taken for granted!
• Håkon: it was amazing to see land, and then shout land!
• Esteban: I have always dreamt of visiting Easter Island, but not on a balsa raft!
• Pål: To finally see Rapa Nui after 42 days is a relief, we made it!
• Gunvor: It's crazy to find this island!
• Andrey: Half-way done, congratulations!
• Kari: I was on watch, looking out, wondering when we would see the island. All of a sudden, there it was -- I was with Bora and we hugged!
• Cecilie: Lovely to reach Rapa Nui, it looks lovely in the distance. An adventure is sadly over but it is a fantastic bonus to get to see this famous island!

By Gunvor, seen in the sunset picture

I want to try to give a picture on how it is to sail a raft and how it is to steer with guaraboards, or daggerboards. Now we have been out sailing for over four weeks. Mostly we have had southeasterly and easterly winds. They have been from a light breeze to what we in Norway call a frisk bris, about 10 m/s, maybe up to a small gale in some showers. Even tough we have sailed and steered this vessel for a month now, we experience new things every day.

Continue reading here...

By Cecilie Mauritzen, Meteorologist and Chief Scientist

(2015-12-18) We have been out here in the southeast Pacific for more than a month, and we never tire of the changing skies. We may not have seen as many stars as we expected, but on the other hand we have overdosed on beautiful clouds. You can see some of our favorites in these pictures.

By Andrey, aka. andrew, who is very happy to be here and now

(2015-12-18) The 1st place of the most exciting feelings and sensations of this journey gets climbing on the mast. first time it was a little scary, because of unstable and twisting and trembling ladder, but in couple of times i've used for it. and that sense, when you are standing on the soar (top of the sail) and watching the horizon espesially in the time of sunrise... it is more than freedom or inspiration or beauty. it is happiness. and this happiness is so real and concentrate, that it seems, you can touch it with your hands. "amazing" is too light word to describe it.

By Kari Dahl

Signe woke me up carefully saying I think you want to bring out your sextant this morning. And she was so right! I am listing up our sights, and you can use them for navigation training purposes. A special greetings to SOCIEDAD ASTRONOMICA Y GEOGRAFICA DE CIUDAD REAL. Un saludo desde nuestra balsa.

We are in position S 31,72 W 106 3,9
The sights were:
Betelgeuse approx 06:22, angle 23
Riegel 06:30:57 angle 23
X (planet/star over Betelgeuse) 06:32:10 angle 45:50
Rigil Kent 06:29:52
X (probably Sirius, compass 300) 06:34:15 angle 42:50
Venus 06:36:18 angle 24:33 (bearing:165)
X (probably Sirius) 06:41:17 angle 42 (compass:275)
06:44:23 angle 42
Mars 06:50:25 angle:55
Venus
06:45:30 angle 26:37
06:51:45.angle 37:15
06:54:40 angle 28:58
06:55:46 angle 28:03
06:56:34 angle 28:05
06:57:34 angle 28
06:59:09 angle 29:42
07:00:15 angle 29:56
07:01:17 angle 30:04
07:02:22 angle 30:27

By Kari Dahl

(2015-12-15) On our voyage across the Pacific ocean, the Kon-Tiki2 Expedition does not find many rocks, islands, or reefs to stay clear of. In that way, navigation has been very easy. Tonight we will be heading over a hidden island (in Spanish: isla fantasma) called Roca Minnehaha. This island was first spotted by a ship called Victoria in 1879. It has not been seen for many years, but is kept in the nautical charts — just in case it is there. There are many wonders below and around us and Roca Minnehaha could be one of them. So tonight, we keep sharp look-out.

[The editor was awoken by a cheerful crew on Rahiti Tane on VHF this morning. They reported that no isla fantasma had been spotted overnight, even if the island is real enough to have its own page in Wikipedia. The first picture shows how the island appears on printed nautical charts (with captain Øyvin Lauten's authentic markings), and the second picture shows the Pacific ocean as we see it just now. No islas — fantasma or real — only the beautiful Rahiti Tane on the horizon.]

In the pictures, Andrey is seen with his signature bandana, and his signature musical instrument. Andrey appreciates many means of transport, including buses in Callao and rubber dinghys in the Pacific. He likes the ocean (helpful in the Pacific), and quickly learnt the ropes on the raft. Given a few more months, there would have been been seven blue-eyed Norwegian speakers onboard Tupac Yupanqui!

By Signe (who sits front in this picture from the Rahiti front deck)

(2015-12-14) Our fifth week has passed and it's been somewhat of an international food week. We've had a taste of India, Italy, Indonesia, USA and a few places in between. We've also invented some new dishes and we have started sprouting lentils! So now we have fresh vegetables in the form of sprouted lentils, we have rehydrated vegetables from the dried ones Gunvor brought and we also still have some onions and garlic. Who would've thought we'd be eating fresh vegetables in the middle of the ocean? The menu:

• Sunday: Quinoa balls with rice and sauce
• Monday: Chick peas in curry sauce
• Tuesday: Dehydrated foods from our sponsor Real Turmat
• Wednesday: Spaghetti with tomato sauce
• Thursday: Lentils in a thick peanut/coconut sauce with rice
• Friday: Tomato/pea soup with an Asian twist
• Saturday: Burgers (lentils and quinoa) with burger bread and yucca-fries

We never throw any food overboard, and so breakfast and lunch are good opportunities to use leftovers. We always have oatmeal for breakfast, and very often this porridge consists of more than just oats and water. Leftover rice and quinoa are good additions to the porridge. Our expedition doctor Boris tells me that a mixed porridge of oats and rice is called friendship in Russia — we have friendship for breakfast several times a week and it tastes much better than just plain oatmeal! Whatever porridge is left over is used as a base for baking bread or making pancakes. Whenever we finish another pot of peanut butter we put water into it and shake to get the last bits out, and use this in a sauce. This way we make sure that we never waste any food.

Now we've entered what will probably be our last week at sea and since Sunday was Lucia-day we baked lussekatter!

Today the Tupac crew lifted the quality of the expedition dataset up many many levels, with their deep water CTD cast to 2000 meters. Who would have thought it would be possible to perform that sort of operation on a little, open-deck raft, with a sail-winch run on solar power and some kevlar rope thinner than the knitting yarn on Rahiti Tane? Well, its time to eat some hats — Tupac did it :). Proud of science, proud of dedication, proud of the Kon Tiki 2 Expedition!

[The three last pictures show the recoved CTD with David Short (left) and Håkon Wium Lie, Expedition leader Torgeir Higraff, and the Tupac Yupanqui balsa raft from where the CTD was cast]

Team-building on Rahiti Tane

The food situation

The inner life of Rahiti

Beautiful, beautiful rafts

Scientists unite! No more assessment without action!

by Cecilie Mauritzen, Chief Scientist, the Kon Tiki 2 Expedition, Lead author of the 4th and 5th Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Based on the earlier blog What the ocean would have said at COP21 I just received an interesting challenge from Heidi and Heikki Niskanen in Finland. This wonderful couple were part of the raft building team in Peru. And now, from their warm house in winter Finland they ask: What would Cecilie have said at COP21?

Read Cecilie's response in the Science page

Lifelong dream fulfilled

In translation: kontiki2.ru

Signe Siglar

Two more drifters released

Keeping clean

Bread beats rice on this raft

Film photographer wanted

Happy Birthday, Tupac & Rahiti!

Three frigatebirds

The importance of deep-water measurements

Pictures from the deep-water cast

Pacific cuisine on Rahiti Tane, week 4

Coffee habits

Sailing Rahiti

By Captain Kari Skår Dahl (som også blogger på norsk)

(2015-12-06) So far on this voyage, Tupac has been the sharpest sailing balsa of the two rafts. But something has changed. The last week or so, the distance between us has increased, little by little. We were 12nm miles apart at eight o clock last night. Rahiti Tane have been sailing as slow as she can, not gaining height, the crew hardly working at the helm all night. And still we gained another 2,5 nm and some height.

As we have been struggling for a month to keep up with Tupac, we have all become good and fokused helmsmen. Even the fresh sailors have been reading the squalls, trying to get most out of each shift of wind. And we have to continue to work hard if we are going to get to the little island ahead of us with the winds that are predicted in the forecasts we receive. They will continue to be easterly the next week, increasing a little in strength.

Today we used the time when we waited for Tupac to become even better at sailing balsas. We have been sailing on one tack, port tack, the whole way. At mid-day, when we were all well rested after night watches, we made some different maneuvers. We turned downwind a few times (kuvending). It was as some had expected, when we lifted all guaras in front and lowered in the back she came about real easy. Stopped when she had the wind astern. There we tested the new sheet and compared the sides of the sail. When we lowered guaras in front and pulled them up in the back, she continued around ontothe starboard tack. We also wanted to practice the coolest maneuver of all – going over stay, tacking (stagvending). None of us have done it on a balsa raft before, and the sailors are excited to test the maneuverability of the raft. We decided not to do it today, but we will take our time and get in some more guara-maneuvers before we reach Rapa Nui.

How far from land can frigatebirds be found?

Gonzalo Figueroa and the Norwegian Expedition

Yet another Laugardag

by Kari Dahl

(2015-12-05) Saturday has become the favorite day of many of the crew of Rahiti Tane. In the daytime we take our bedclothes, PJs, blankets and towels out to dry. This day was especially nice because the sun is shining. The women of the raft had their weekly bath up front, while the men were hunting a dorado with a harpoon in the back. The hunt ended with an empty pan, and the skipper made an attempt to make Tom Ka Gai, her favorite soup. But with only coconut milk as ordinary ingredient, the result was named "as-close-as-we-get-to-Thailand-on-this-trip". The head of provision, Signe always has something especially delicious for us to eat and drink on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Tonight we are having popcorn, and maybe a movie? (When I say this out loud, Boris says "movie" and points to the horizon)

Deep-water CTD launched!
And recovered!

End of the line

Tupac from afar

Pål Børresen catches giant octopus

Raft fashion week

Request from our readers:
Pictures of Bora!

Our raft doctor, Bora, is a favorite. Several of our readers have requested more pictures of the man, and an army of volunteers have been hard at work to fulfill demand. The rare pictures seen here have passed not once, but twice, through the Iridium satellite systems. Some bits got lost up there somewhere, but we can still recognize Bora and other crew members. Bora wisely keeps his medicine chest locked, but is otherwise a most generous crew member.

Kon-Tiki2 in 35 seconds

Something bigger than ourselves?

Video in native Norwegian: Why are we doing this?

What the Ocean would have said.
On oxygen @ cop21

by Cecilie Mauritzen, Chief Scientist, the Kon Tiki 2 Expedition, Lead author of the 4th and 5th Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Dear delegates, dignitaries, ladies and gentlemen,

It is a great honor to be given the floor at the 21st Conference of the Parties here in Paris – a meeting of enormous consequences for Earth, its elements, and all its creatures, great and small. The agreements that are reached at the 2015 climate summit will have consequences for times so far into the future that only the ocean and the mountains will remember.

Today I wish to turn your attention to an aspect of climate change that you have quite possibly never considered. It is an issue of great importance and grave consequences for the ocean, namely that of oxygen depletion. You may not know this, but the animals in the ocean need oxygen to live, just like the animals at land. And, as on land, it is the plants that produce the oxygen. In fact, the ocean normally produces much more oxygen than it needs, and therefore shares its oxygen with the animals in land, including you humans. Nearly half the oxygen you use originates in the ocean. So you see, we, the Ocean, provide a great service as oxygen producer to all Earth's creatures, wherever they live.

And I tell you about this because I fear that we, the Ocean, cannot continue to provide this service at the same high standard much longer. We cannot even supply enough oxygen for our own creatures anymore. "Why?" you may ask. Well, the ultimate reason is the emission of carbon dioxide associated with combustion of fossil fuels. This emission creates temperature increases in the ocean, just like on land. And when the surface ocean gets warmer it gets more buoyant, making it difficult to mix the surface waters with the deep water. Here it gets a little complicated, but no less important: the ocean plants that produce the oxygen live in the surface waters. Less mixing by the winds means less oxygen transported downwards, to where the ocean animals need it. And less mixing means fewer nutrients coming up from the deep ocean to provide food for the ocean plants. Less food means fewer plants and thereby even less oxygen production. This is a worrysome trend that we, the Ocean, worry deeply about, not just because it affects our own creatures, but because it affects all Earth's creatures, great and small, rich and poor, women and man, child and old.

There is only one way to stop this worrysome trend, namely to curb the emissions of carbon dioxide. Every day and every year that you postpone this decision, we, the Ocean, weakens and our services – which you all depend upon – deteriorate. We beg of you: if not for us, then your you, make a decision. Produce an agreement at this summit that will put us, the Ocean, back on the path towards health, so that we can, once again, be the top quality oxygen producer that all Earth's creatures, great and small, depend upon.

Thank you kindly for listening. Most humbly,
We, the Ocean.

Small joys

By Gunvor and Signe

On Rahiti Tane, we are quite good at enjoying the small things. Finding a tiny 5cm flying fish on deck in the morning, dry socks, changing to a clean and dry pillowcase, pineapplerings for dessert, clean underwear, dry underwear (dry anything at all really), realising that we have larger amounts of flour than we thought and so can bake more bread, chocolate on wednesdays and saturdays, red nail polish, finishing a book and immediately starting a new one, not being sleepy on night watch for once, starry skies, dry shoes (lasts about 15 minutes). Seeing schools of flying fish, the sun breaking through the clouds. Receiving an e-mail from friends. And last but not least: when someone cleans your dinner bowl for you.

How I was alone in the Pacific ocean

Real food

Dinghy gives perspective

Obituary

by Cecilie Mauritzen

Monday was supposed to be a day of joy on Rahiti Tane. Everything was good: sailing speed, the half moon at (supposedly) sunrise, and breakfast in bed for Esteban, who turned 29 today. Again. We took the reefs out of the sails, to cruise even faster, we celebrated birthday lunch and dinner with our favourites: rice, beans, lentls, onions and garlic; the sun sprang out of the cloudy sky for our afternoon coffee and birthday cake, and... THEN EVERYTHING started happening: both fishing rods reported catches: the birthday boy swiftly took one rod, Pål the other until they realizred they had hooked eachother. A quick reshuffle of people and rods were arranged. And Esteban pulled in half a flying fish! The bait, it appared. Whereas Pål continued to reel in and – supposedly – "fight" with the fish (a rather lopsided competition, if you ask me), with Kari and Esteban screaming bloody murder. They looked unusually scary with their double and triple hooks (remember: until now we have only managed to catch one single fish, and as much as we love rice, beans, lentls, onions and garlic, it was exciting to think of a variation). So we all watched this game, which took nearly half an hour, and which ended in a bloodbath too intense for the gentlehearted: Bora, Signe and myself. Anyways, the fish died, was fileed and cleaned, and will provide us omega-3 for the rest of the journey. Now, at this point you might think that the excitement and the obituary ended, but no: as we are all trying to settle down after "the great hunt" two things happened: first: a gigantic wave broke through the floorboards in the cabin, throwing 5-gallon water bottles high into the air, together with survival suits and Bora's medical box. And at the same time the fish hook, which was sort of left floating off the stern of the raft after "the great hunt" was eaten by a seagull who mistook it for a dead fish. So Kari pulls in the line, picks up the bird, talks gently to it and condems it to death. Meanwhile, the rest of us tries to deal with the floorboard. It was a very fine floorboard. Now we have protected it with three times as many waterbottles. So come on, waves, se if you can beat THAT! Anyways, this obituary is in reality for the bird, first and foremost. Why are these birds here, and why do they have to die on our raft? We are very very sorry. It was a very fine bird. R.I.P.

Celebrating Esteban!

Pacific cuisine on Rahiti Tane, week 3

by Signe

This week we ran out of carrots, bananas and worst of all: cheese! Parmesan cheese holds well, and we wish we had brought more – it was still very tasty. Anyways, it has been a good food week, kickstarted by Sunday lunch which consisted of fresh bread, omelette and fried rice. We felt like kings. Friday was a special day, we were HALFWAY to Easter Island! The occasion was celebrated with soda, chips and little parasols in our drinks.

The menu for the rest of the week is listed below:

• Sunday: Curry with coconut milk, beans, bananas and rice
• Monday: Lentil stew with rice
• Tuesday: Pancakes
• Wednesday: Chick peas in peanut coconut sauce with rice and the last carrots
• Thursday: Onion soup with the last parmesan, and fried bananas for dessert
• Friday: Spaghetti with tomato sauce
• Saturday: Rice with creamed mushroom sauce

Up until now half of our food has been stored away in the boxes we sleep on, but today it was hauled out and our food boxes on deck are full again. We have enough dried beans, lentils and peas to last us a lifetime. Didn't catch a single fish this week, even though many have tasted our hooks but changed their mind and let go at the last second.

I'd like to say a few words about the most fantastic piece of kitchen equipment we have: the pressure cooker! This beautiful wonderful pot cooks rice to perfection every time, with only half the use of propane gas. Just put water and rice, lentils and beans into the pot, heat until it hisses, turn off the gas and wait for 15 minutes. Voila! For potatoes it's maybe even better, just put the potatoes and 2cm of salt water into the pot, and follow the procedure above. This way we save both water and gas. However, the potatoes we have smell and taste so bad that we've only eaten them once, and now we usually just throw a dirty look in their direction every now and then.

On that note, I'll finish up, and urge whoever is reading this to send creative ideas about what to eat – when our onions run out in a few days and the only vegetable we have left is garlic (and the odd tinned tomato).

[Signe and Gunvor can be reached on sailors.rahiti@myiridium.net]

Raft fashion week

(2015-11-30) Due to reasons we not quite understand, the weather has been colder than expected on Kon-Tiki2. Thankfully, we all have underwear from Brynje of Norway, which keeps us warm and happy. Really, without them we would have been more miserable. It has become quite fashionable to walk around on deck sporting one's underwear, and some even clean fish or check the Manta trawl in them. Captain Kari shows off the slightly thicker version with an extra large smile.

Uplink

(2015-11-29) If you have been following the stories posted on this site, you may have seen a pattern; we publish many pictures of the Rahiti Tane raft, and even more pictures from the Tupac Yupanqui raft. Why is this? Today is no exception: the first picture is of the Rahiti Tane this morning, taken from Tupac Yupanqui. To the right of the huge wave, you will see a person in an orange suit. Our guess it that Gunvor is out on deck, wearing proper protection gear. The second picture is the iron bobbin on Tupac Yupanqui, lovingly handcrafted at the SIMA shipyard and now partially filled with recovered kevlar rope. It also serves as a table for the crew. Picture 3, 4, and 5 shows the solution to the question: our uplink antenna on Tupac Yupanqui. While both rafts can send and receive email using the Iridium GO, the GO cannot upload high-resolution images or video clips. For this, another antenna is necessary and we us the Iridium Pilot. It's bigger, much more expensive, and it requires patience and multiple retries to upload files or fetch web pages. But, with the right software tools, you can actually maintain a web site and report preliminary research results. Essential tools include Opera Mini, Opera Max, Opera Turbo, lynx, wget and rsync.

Laugardag

by Kari Dahl

The tradition of cleaning ship and crew on Saturdays has long been a part of my life. On Rahiti Tane we are four women and three men. We all clean the ship together, wash the solar panels, swipe indoors, shift the mats around and hang our sleeping bags out to get the smell out.

The women started taking a bath together on the first Saturday at sea. This has become a fun highlight of the week for us. Yesterday, it was pretty cold, and we decided to postpone Laugardag. But, as we had lost sight of Tupac due to some really hard night sailing, we put in two søft/reefs to wait for them, and the operation made us sweat enough to to through with baths as planned. We put on our pink matching underwear for the occation. The water is pleasant now, 21 degrees.

[Editor's note: the picture of the female crew on Rahiti attached to this story is a breakthrough in both fashion and technology. It is the first digital image that has escaped Rahiti Tane by satellite. The resolution is close to the first pictures from tbe moonlanding, but colors are more intense. As is the looks in the eyes of the Laugardag partcipants. We hope more images, and more Laugardags, will follow.]

Showing true colors

by Cecilie Mauritzen

We are in some little stormcenter, and everyone is a little cranky. For the third day in a row, water is exploding up from under the beds every time a huge wave hits. Worst off is Kari, the captain. Water even found its way splashing into her sleeping bag. So she has arranged her bed with every kind of protection against splashes you can think of: ropes, towels, garbage bags, survival suits, rain jacket, you name it, she's got it. And the funny thing about Kari is that no matter how bad it is she finds a funny way to describe it and then she pulls out yet another item her mother has sent along which will improve the situation.

For a while I envied everybody their rain boots, but now that the Pacific is showing its true colors I see boots are not that useful. It is not a question of hours, but minutes, until they are filled with water. As Gunvor puts it: "normally when you're out sailing the water comes from above, not below!". Here, the wave builds up from beneath, finds its way into you rainpants, an then down into your boots. In minutes. So I don't envy those boots so much anymore :)

Everything is humid. Skin is cracking -deeply – on our hands and feet, so we speculated for a while that we were turning into a leper colony out here. But its the humidity. The clothes may LOOK dry once in a while, but that's only an optical illusion. Our Saturday snack – specifically: Pringles – turned to impotent mush in less than five minutes. As usual, Esteban verbalizes what everybody thinks: "I am sick of being wet all the time!".

The Pacific is showing its true colors: not so "pacific", not so blue... But we won't give up. We've seen the weather forecast. We know we will get our fantasy Pacific back. One day :)

Half-way celebration

(2015-11-28) The two Kon-Tiki2 rafts both passed the half-way mark today, and the occasion was duly celebrated. Rahiti Tane celebrated with with pancackes and extra rations for all. In a moving ceremony, the two last drifters were put to sea. National anthems were sung, including the Norwegian and the Russian. At Tupac Yupanqui, celebrations started with a most delicious chocolate cake. Part two was the ceremonial opening of a rare bottle of apple juice from Håkon's apple orchard. The third, and final, stage, was the opening of a wonderfully wrapped gift from our not-so-secret admirers on Rahiti Tane. Each of the crew received one pair of boxer shorts with personal inscriptions. Andrey looked stylish wearing the new garment on his head, and others soon took after this ancient Russian custom. Dried apple snacks and other calorific content was also included in the generous package, and the crew toasted to our friends on Rahiti, to raft life in general, and to the next 1000 miles.

What would the Ocean have Said?

Thoughts at the dawn of the 2015 Climate Summit in Paris

by Cecilie Mauritzen, Chief Scientist, the Kon Tiki 2 Expedition, Lead author of the 4th and 5th Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

What is it about nature? Why is it so beautiful? Why is it ALWAYS so beautiful? Why does it hide so well all its scars and bruises? Why does it let us get away with it all?

I sit on a balsa raft in the Pacific Ocean, leisurely sailing from Peru to Easter Island. I watch the swells go by, the sun come and go, the small squalls pass by, the winds steadily blowing out of the southeast, allowing us, just barely, to steer so far upwind that we have a justified hope of reaching Easter Island before Christmas. In fact, we are two rafts, and both are packed to capacity with research equipment to document the state of the southeast Pacific during this (southern hemisphere) spring, which happens to be in a gigantic El Nino year.

One of the rafts, the Tupac Yupanqui, is dedicated to monitoring plastic pollution. We are crossing one of the five major plastic accumulation regions ("gyres") of the World Oceans, and we have brought many different instruments to acquire a solid data base on this year's gyre. But what do we see? Nothing. Nada. Okey, a coke bottle twice so far, but otherwise: not one thing. The steady, intense winds have efficiently mixed down the plastic so that it looks just as gorgeous as it did 70 years ago when Thor Heyerdahl crossed these seas with the Kon Tiki. "Our" Pacific is probably a bit greyer than the blue colors his crew so eloquently described, but that's because of the weather, not because of some color contamination.

Our instruments will be able to detect particles smaller than the human eye can see, and will be able to record with high precision what the broken-down plastic - the microplastic - consists of and where it most likely came from. Our research therefore adds to the never-ending, painstaking collecting of data that has been the task of the scientist since times immemorial. And microplastic is one of those particularly insidious pollutants; it attracts toxins and it folows the food web of the marine ecosystem, thus slowly poisoning the entire chain. But it doesn't really matter what the scientist collects, does it? Because no one can see it. Can't see the plastic in the oceans nor the poison in the animals. The ocean is gorgeous. And the animal life is up to par. I see dolphins, dorados, whales, flying fish and a multitude of birds. In fact, our raft has turned into its own little ecosystem which we monitor with cameras every day. To us, the marine life looks nothing but happy.

My raft, the Rahiti Tane, is packed with equipment to monitor climate change. We measure ocean temperature, ocean CO2-content, ocean oxygen content, ocean acidity. We know the oceans are behaving like a huge buffer in Earth's big effort to mitigate climate change: the oceans take up a third of all the CO2 that mankind emits every year. And it takes up almost all the heat created by climate change. Almost all! Sure, the global atmospheric temperature is rising, decade by decade, with all its consequences in terms of heat waves, extrem weather, floods and droughts. But that's only a few percent of the heat accumulated on Earth. More than 90 % of that heat is stored, each year, in the oceans. How is that for an efficient buffer? Without the oceans we would already be facing much harsher changes due to climate change. The oceans spare us from facing reality. Damned nature.

Meanwhile I rock gently back and forth on my raft – the Rahiti Tane, so full of personality and crewed with such a lovely croup of people – genuinely proud to be running a full-scale research program purely on solar power. I think of all the interesting research questions I get to address. My only concern is that we are running out of fuses. (Well, and that we are almost out of chocolate...). And then the thought strikes me: this is all in vain. Nobody will care. There cannot possibly be anything wrong with something so beautiful. Damned nature.

Could the ocean, even if it were sitting at the negotiating table at the climate summit in Paris, arguing for the strong climate agreement it really needs, convince anybody to sign anything? I do not know. Because the ocean is SO beautiful. But what would it have said? Now, THAT is an interesting question.

I, Bora

by Boris Romanov, transcribed by Kari Dahl

(2015-11-28) Bora loves the team and life on board. He can not cook, but is happy to wash the plates. Yesterday he fixed the guara, and without experience with wood, but managed fine together with Esteban. He likes steering a course. Right now he is playing it like a trombone while singing "My Way". He lost his iPhone and he lost a sock. He believes Triton has good use for it, and is happy to lend them to him. But he is happy that he found his swimming trunks. From time to time he dreams of a dry and quiet bed. And also dry shoes. And it is time to catch fish, the level of protein in the body might be low. His head is very clean and he feels very good.

Balsa Mama

by Guvor Storaas

(2015-11-28) Today I want to give you a guided tour onboard at Rahiti Tane, or Balsa Mama as we have started to call her. At 03.45 in the morning it all starts for me. Bora, our Russian doctor, tickles my foot to wake me up. It is time to take the 0400-0800 watch. When I open my eyes I see straight over to the navigation desk. The GPS glows like a bug in the dark. It tells our speed, position and course over ground. On the port side of me Cecilie, our scientist, wobbles up and down on her inflatable matress. On the starbord side lies Esteban, our carpenter, photographer and Chilean. He almost always lies in a lotus position, wonder how that is possible in a sleepingbag. Anyways, to get out, I have to climb over a box filled with scientific equipment. All this happens inside the hut, which is placed in the middle of the raft. Up til now it has been quite dry in there. But these last couple of days, the captain has complained about water in her bunk. So as the raft sinks down in the sea, and the sea builds up to 4 meter waves, we regulary get the deck cleaned, both inside and outside. Also inside we have the office department, or the scientific area. Cecilie sits there all day long, just outside to take the met-observation, drink a cup of coffee and watch the sunrise.

Because watching the sunrise, drink a cup of coffee and when the sunrise is good, listen to "Morgenstemning" by Grieg, has become a ritual onboard. It all happens in the stern, where we steer the raft. That area is also called the bubblebath-area. All the waves comes in there. It is also nice to take a swim in the eddy behind the raft, if you want a relaxing swimming trip. If you want more action, you can take your swimming on the side of the raft. With a rope around your waist, you can swim as long as you keep the raft's speed. The swimming-area is next to what we call the livingroom. This is in the leeward side of the hut. We have three boxes to sit on, and the best view in the whole Pacific. Flying fish, dorados, dolphins, whales coming up 1,5 m from the raft, birds, all kinds of entertainment happens here. This is also the best place to tan, because there is no wind. It is Pål's favourite place on the raft I think, cause he always sits there reading his book.

In the front of the hut, we have the kitchen. This is where Signe is the boss. She has all kinds of secrets since she is the stuert, the person responsible for food onboard. We have lots of pots and pans, and can make all kinds of food. Lasange, bread, pancakes are some of the favourites. In the front we also have lots of space. Esteban uses it to practice yoga. I like to hang upside down in the sail there. We also got some guaras, some more scientific equipment and tools there. On the port side of the hut, we have the "lesesal". This is were Kari likes to bring her book. Leaning on the dinghy, which is placed up towards the hutwall. And not to forget our toilet which is behind the dinghy, in the back on the port side. These days when we have waves up till 4 m, it is very exciting to sit there. The toilet is on the windward side, same as the waves. So one have to make sure that your pants don't get filled with water as you sit there.

Finally in the far front, we have the shower. Bora uses it every day. The bottom logs continue 2,5 m after the deck, and all the waves hitting the raft make a shower. The area is regulary used by the whole crew. On saturdays the men are banished to the back of the raft, so the female part of the crew can undress and take a shower. The temperature is 21 degrees, says Cecilie's instruments.

So this is our raft and a part of our daily life. We would like to have visitors, so if you happen to be just between Peru and the Easter Island, you are more than welcome to visit.

How much plastics do we find?

(2015-11-27) We try to run the Manta trawl daily. It sifts through Pacific water for an hour or two, looking for plastics on the side of the Tupac Yupanqui. We have not found large amounts of plastics, at least not enough to conclude that we are in a plastic gyre. However, we always find plactic fragments, and these pictures document today's catch. In picture 1, a small blue fragment is seen in the sift we use when emptying the trawl. In picture 2, today's three fragments can be seen, including a soft, transparent, round piece of plastic onto which plantlife has attached itself. The underlying grid is 5mm. Picture 3 shows plastic line fragments that were attached to our fishing line this morning — this is also a common occurrence. Picture 4 could be plastic, but isn't. These are small blue animals of some kind. Can someone help us identify them? Picture 5 and 6 shows plastic which is securely attached to our raft: a birthday balloon for Ola, and (on the lower right side) empty water bottles. Fortunately, we have 4000 metres of kevlar line to tie these up with.

Celebrating Ola

(2015-11-27) Another birthday was celebrated mid-ocean today as Ola turned 24. He was woken to (a meager) breakfast in bed, and then called up by the legendary Rahiti Tane VHF Raft Choir, feat. their lead singer Bora. Ola's crewmates baked one of Baker Hansen's famous bread recipies, with just enough salt water. Other treats on the table included mustard, our last piece of cheese, and jam. Gifts were presented, and a blue balloon hung to mark the occation. Plastic. Must remember to dispose of properly.

Water, water, everywhere...

(2015-11-27) ... still many drops to drink. The video shows Torgeir in a heroic effort to save water bottles from underneath the deck. They were stored there until we realized that the evermoving sea was rough on them, and that some started taking in salt water. Tupac Yupanqui lost around 300 litres of potable water, but this is less than 10% of our supplies and we have plenty of water for the rest of our journey to Easter Island. We may have to refill our supplies there. This is less than ideal, as water is a precious resource on the island.

Gunvor Storaas, a true sailoress

(2015-11-27) Gunvor Storaas is one of the true sailors onboard Rahiti Tane. She not only sails, the also teaches sailing at our favorite school: Fosen. In this authentic VHF conversation Gunvor discloses the hardships her students suffer, and what motivates a 16-year old girl to take up traditional wooden boats as a hobby. If you have the same urge, you should also head for the Hardanger Maritime Center.

The pictures above reveal a smiling, hard-working, and social person – one who can both prepare for a challenge, and be part of it. (Editor's disclosure: the views expressed in this paragraph may be influenced by the fact that Gunvor bribed him with bowl of delicious mango chutney while on board the Rahiti Tane.)

Snake mackerel, anyone?

(2015-11-26) In Thor Heyerdahl's book about the Kon-Tiki Expedition, he writes about about a special fish:

The fish was over three feet long, as slender as a snake, with dull black eyes and a long snout with a greedy jaw full of long sharp teeth ... Bengt too was woken at last by all the noise. He sat up drowsily in his sleeping bag and said solemnly: "No, fish like that doesn't exist" ... Bengt was not far wrong. It appeared later that we six sitting round the lamp in the bamboo cabin were the first men to have seen this fish alive.

The number of men who have seen this fish alive increased as of last night. Ola, who now tops the Tupac Yupanqui fishing charts, caught the beast during night watch. The fish has not been eaten. We may be hungry at times, but we're not that hungry. Yet.

Thanksgiving on the rafts

(2015-11-26) There are no turkeys to be eaten on the Kon-Tiki2 rafts, but the crew is still thankful on this day:

• Cecilie is thankful for the camaraderie with follow sailors and the peace of being without news of war and aggression
• Kari is thankful to have a crew who stands tall when it matters the most
• Pål is grateful for his family
• Signe (yawns) is grateful for staying in bed a little longer (12-4 watch)
• Esteban is grateful to be part of this expedition
• Boris stands next to him and is also grateful for this adventure, and he is happy to do all the jobs he gets (right now he is making an improvised guara board). And he comes over and says "and we are lucky to have the wind on our faces"
• Gunvor appreciates that she has the opportunity to be at sea, the moments, challenges and experiences
• Jostein is thankful for this expedition and to all who has made it possible. He is especially thankful for new friends from Fosen, for all the experience and learning, for all the memories I have had and will get, and for the adventure!
• Øyvin is thankful for having had two hours of sailing straight towards Easter Island today
• Ola is thankful for good wind and sunshine
• Torgeir is thankful that we still have food, for the rice an beans we have left, and for the fish we caught
• Andrey is thankful to those who helped build the rafts
• David is thankful for being away from the news
• Håkon is thankful for the satellites above us, and for solar panels

A tour of our mast

(2015-11-26) The mast on Tupac Yupanqui is 15 metres high. It has several functions. First, it holds the yard with the sail. Second, it has some technical installations, including two VHF antennas and a weather station. Last, but not least, the mast is our flagpole. To make sure these vital function continue to work, the mast was inspected today. David was hoisted up first, then Håkon, who brought his camera. Pictures can hardly convey the near-religious experience one has in the top of such mast. Especially in 15 knots wind with 2 meter waves. Thankfully, a strong crew ensured a smooth return to to the somewhat safer deck.

Raft sushi

(2015-11-25) The tuna caught earlier today was turned into a fantastic birthday dinner, by Torgeir, for Torgeir. The protein-challenged crew followed the chef's prepartions with hungry eyes in our open-air kitchen. For desert: a magnificant sunset.

In other news, we have taken stock of our fresh water supplies on Tupac Yupanqui. We have lost around 300 litres of potable water due to salt water intrusion. This, however, is less than 10% of our supplies and we have plenty of water for the rest of our journey to Easter Island. We may have to refill our supplies there. This is less than ideal, as water is a precious resource on the island. Can't we just collect rain water? Nope. We've had very little rain on the journey so far, mostly we have mist-like precipitation at night.

Gratulerer med dagen, TH#2!

For Torgeir Higraff, on his 43rd birthday, by P. J. Capelotti

Despite instantaneous global communications and all of the impatience they have spawned, many explorers still yearn to understand the slow mechanisms by which ancient people created the original global economy. For them, it is no shock that we of the modern world did not invent worldwide trade networks. They understand that we have merely accelerated connections that were created by transoceanic explorers thousands of years ago. The moment Kon-Tiki reached Polynesia successfully, all of the world’s oceans, especially the Pacific, became archaeological seas, where people could explore not just the present and the future, but the remote past of our distant ancestors. Inside the global oceanic laboratory Thor Heyerdahl created, Torgeir Higraff seeks nothing less than to understand the paths of human global exploration. The sailor tacks against the wind, the drifter must of necessity journey wherever the wind blows. One fights nature, one submits to it. The sailor is heroic, the drifter, romantic. Even though the drifter often raises sail, he does so only with the wind directly – or very nearly so – at his back. This is not in any way to suggest that one can drift on a balsa raft knowing nothing about the rudiments of sailing. It is merely to propose that we still know how to sail, in a systematic way, because sailboats are still in use all over the world. On the other hand, it is very likely that no one had attempted a transoceanic voyage on a raft for at least several hundred years prior to the Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947. Now, after the expeditions of Thor Heyerdahl and Torgeir Higraff, we are close to understanding how such craft were navigated in prehistory.

Gratulerer med dagen, TH#2!

Congratulations, Torgeir Higraff!

(2015-11-25) Kon-Tiki2 Expedition leader Torgeir Higraff celebrated his 43th birthday today, at 14 degrees South, 92 degrees West. He was greeted by the Rahiti Tane Raft Choir, in a special performance of Hurra for deg. Raft doctor and media celebrity Boris Romanov then performed his own interpretation, to be included on the B-side of the single. In an unprecedented move, Torgeir's crewmates at Tupac Yupanqui had baked a chocolate cake! Andrey performed a celebratory tune on his banjo, and Håkon gave a speech where he thanked Torgeir for continuing Thor Heyerdahl's legacy and for giving the crew a chance to join his Expedition. Ola had not one, but two special gifts for Torgeir. First, a self-caught tuna fish (which bravely fought against his fate: birthday dinner for Torgeir!). Second, a self-made fid (which is used when splicing rope).

Rainbow over Rahiti Tane

(2015-11-25) A beautiful rainbow graced Rahiti Tane this morning. In the picture, you can see the full rainbow, part of the sail on Tupaq Yupanqui, and – with difficulty – a small dot on the horizon, which is the Rahiti Tane raft (inside the rainbow, on the left side). The smallness is due to the wide-angled lens, and the superior sailing by the Rahiti Tane crew. As a bonus picture, we add a zoomed sunset view of Rahiti Tane last night.

In other news, we are aware of reports of an earthquake in Peru. Here at sea, 800 nautical miles from the Peruvian coastline, we have not seen or felt anything unusual during the night watch. Thanks to those who reported, we appreciate your concern.

Flyt Forlag

(2015-11-24) For our English-speaking audience, this story offers pictures of happy people reading real paper books on a raft in the Pacific. However, if you read Norwegian, you should look more closely. On the shelves of Rahiti Tane, Signe picks out her favorite book from Flyt Forlag, a Norwegian publisher specializing in maritime books. Our bookshelves are stacked with books from Flyt forlag, to Øyvin's delight. He is our most avid reader, and has – really – read through most of the collection on Tupac Yupanqui. Ola is also an eager reader, while Håkon has found that the drifters provide perfect back support for reading about Colin Archer. Many of the books are about past expeditions, reminding us that we are not the first adventurers to sail the oceans. Others are self-help books, like Lær å seile ("Learn to sail"). Perhaps we should have read that one before we set out?

One of the favorite titles on our journey is Flåteferder i Kon-Tikis kjølvann (orignal title "Sea Drift: Rafting Adventures in the Wake of Kon-Tiki") written by J. P. Capelotti. It so happens that the author has sent a greeting to the Kon-Tiki2 Expedition. He writes;

This is a fascinating experiment and one I know will lead to new insights into the navigation of prehistoric routes between the Americas and Polynesia. Lykke til!

Thank you, perhaps we can provide a new chapter for the next edition?

Sunshine!

By Cecilie Mauritzen, Chief Scientist of the Kon-Tiki2 Expedition

It is Tuesday November 24, we are west of 90 W, and we have entered a new type of weather, after being pounded with strong southeasterlies, huge swells, and cloudy, humid conditions for more than two weeks. Today was sunny, calm and wonderful. So sunny in fact, that we pulled out yet another instrument from the Rahiti Tane toybox. In this case a "Microtop" to measure aerosol optical depth of the atmosphere over oceans. These instruments require a clear view of the sun, so ours had so far been collecting dust.

With the Microtop measurements we participate in a global network of 500 voluntary ships who contribute to monitor how the aerosol content of the atmosphere changes with space and time. The program is coordinated by NASA. Remember, these particles have an overall cooling effect on the atmosphere, but regionally they can have a huge impact on how temperature and even precipitation varies from place to place. So that's why it is so important that the voluntary ships keep collecting their data, year in and year out. And today, we did our little part :)

Why are we sailing rafts to Easter Island an back to South America?

by Kon-Tiki2 Expedition leader Torgeir Higraff

Thor Heyerdahl proved that ancient South Americans could drift across the Pacific on their rafts. It was a ethnological theory he worked on all his career. Is there more to be done? I think so, and this is what the Kon-Tiki2 Expedition is all about.

Kon-Tiki could not be steered, they could not set a course, keep it, nor define destination. The Kon-Tiki could never have reached a specific target, especially not Easter Island which is too far south for the prevailing currents. Still, Heyerdahl was the first to provide knowledge about balsarafts in modern times. He provoked the archaologists and ethnologists to dig into the prehistory of Polynesia, and inspired millions of people academically.

Heyerdahl proved that balsa rafts could carry people for months at sea. But ancient South Americans could do more: they could steer their rafts, and navigate anywhere in the Pacific. When wind and current push us on Rahiti Tane and Tupac Yupanqui north, we sail towards west and even southeast. How is this possible? Because we are not copying Kon-Tiki, we are copying the rafts from prehistory and early history based on archaeological and historical evidence Heyerdahl was not aware of in 1947. Coastal maritime civilizations in South America had sophisticated navigation skills. Like them, we use guara boards (also called dagger boards) to set course. On our rafts, we adjust he guara boards day and night and we document all major movements of the boards.

Recent studies have shown that South American DNA entered Easter Island between 1300AD and 1500AD. The Kon-Tiki2 Expedition shows how people could have travelled there, and how they sailed back. We also present how Polynesians could sail their rafts to South America. Noone have sailed between Easter Island and South America on a raft in modern times. We are well on our way on the first leg, but the biggest challenges are still ahead.

[Also check our science program with NTNU, NIVA and Kongsberg, and read more about why we do this]

Boris Romanov, our medical doctor

(2015-11-24) Boris Romanov is the medical doctor of the Kon-Tiki2 Expedition. In this authetic VHF conversation, he discusses medical incidents on our rafts, appendectomies (not his favorite topic), and his fellow Russian doctor Yuri Senkevich. Yuri joined several of Thor Heyerdahl's expeditions and later became a well-respected TV personality in the USSR. Perhaps Boris also have a career in media? You heard him here first!

The pictures above reveal that Boris is both serious and humorous. This is a good combination for a raft doctor – he is serious enough for us to trust him with our lives, and he's humorous enough for his fellow crew on Rahiti Tane to enjoy his company for six weeks.

Another beautiful day

(2015-11-24) The weather has improved and we now have hours of sun every day. This is good for solar panels and crew. In the first picture, the men of Tupac Yupanqui raise the sails. Later, they discover that water bottles stowed underneath their beds have been damaged by the constant movements of the raft. The bottles are moved to the front deck to check for salt content. Meanwhile, a beautiful Peruvian booby came flying by, looking for a snack. The little fellow in picture 5 hid in the Manta trawl, which primarily tries to find plastics. Who is he, and what is he doing at the surface? Did he live on our raft, and jumped ship? Or, is he a representative of the crustaceans, which the white-bellied storm petrel – yesterday's mystery bird, identified by several readers, thanks! – is known to eat? The diameter of the shell is 8-10mm. As always, we are eager to hear from onshore marine biologists. (The image is taken with a 1:1 macro lens and further magnified 2x. You can see our siv under the crab.)

Finally, we see Rahiti Tane in a magnificent Pacific sunset.

Installations under water

(2015-11-23) The three-stage sampler from NIVA is a big water pump which uses massive amounts of energy (raft scale). It floats on the side of the raft while it pumps exactly 15.000 litres of water through three filters of varying sizes. We preserve these filters so that onshore researchers later can detect plastics. The sampler was launched today, as was Jostein, our under-water photographer. In these pictures you can see the sampler with the floater box on top. The floater box is carefully calibrated to keep the sampler floating in water. The blue rope is an electrical cable which transmits power as well as control signals; power is cut off after extactly 15.000 litres.

In the last picture, you can see our raft from underneath, including the Kongsberg EK80 echo sounders, guara boards, and a fish!

Tracking our rafts

(2015-11-23) Our home page has a little map on the left side, showing the progress of the Kon-Tiki2 rafts. If you zoom in, you can see marked positions where the rafts have sent tracking signals. Each raft has one Iridium GO unit (seen in picture 1, 2, and barely in 3) which continously tracks our positions with the built-in GPS receiver. Every 30 minutes, an email with the current position is automatically sent to our web server. There, a small script gently massages the reported positions add them to a small Google Map on our home page (If you want to play with our data set, you can find our reported positions here)

Also, the Iridium GO unit sets up a small wifi network on each raft. Through this network, the crew can send and receive email. In picture 4, the Samsung Galaxy J2 – which comes with Opera Max – is used to connect from outside the cabin. In picture 5, you can see the small outside antenna of the Iridium GO. The Irididium satellites are 780 kilometres above us, and the bandwidth is limited (2.4kbs). However, small text-based messages get through and this is a much-appreciated communication channel with the outside world. Feel free to send us email and stop for a moment to think about the wonderful journey your bits will take!

Animals around us

(2015-11-23) We owe thanks to readers who have helped us identify species seen from the Kon-Tiki2 rafts. In the whale movie posted, Megaptera novaeangliae was suggested. Someone else called it a Rorqual. Others, again, said humpback. These are all names for the same whale: Humpback = Megaptera novaeangliae = one of the larger rorqual species. In the second whale sighting, several identified it as a pilot whale.

When we asked what bird it was, the answer quickly came back: a Peruvian booby. It came back today, shown in the first picture.

We now need help with another puzzling bird, shown in picture 2, 3, and 4. It flies like a swallow, with quick turns close to the water. But it doesn't seem to fish. And in close-ups, like above, it looks more rounded than a swallow. What could it be? And what is it doing out here, 700 nautical miles from shore?

As an extra bonus, we add a picture of our security line, which has become a cozy home for some.

Epic drone footage from Kon-Tiki2

(2015-11-22) From above, the two Kon-Tiki2 rafts look spectacular set against the magnificant Pacific ocean. Taking off from the front deck is a challenge, and landing it amongst ropes, sails and sailors even more so. But we managed, this time.

Footage from our time in Lima is also available: clip1 clip2 clip3 clip4 clip5 clip6

Week 2 at sea:
Pacific cuisine on Rahiti Tane

(2014-11-22) Signe and Gunvor write: We receive quite a few questions about what we eat onboard the rafts. We went shopping about a week before departure and bought what then seemed like a ridiculous amount of food. After repacking and stowing it, however, it seemed to have shrunk. How much do 14 sailors eat during what may become 135 days? How much fish will we catch, and how many oranges, onions, carrots and other fruit and vegetables could we bring without them going bad? In addition to fresh foods we bought what we could find of tinned food, dried food, and quite a lot of rice, beans and lentils. We brought a variety of spices to be able to season things differently from day to day.

Every day starts off with oatmeal for breakfast, accompanied by fresh orange juice and a cup of coffee. We left Peru with 50 kg of oranges and now we're down to the last 10 kg – and dreading the day we'll run out. Lunch is usually rice with leftovers (if the night watch hasn't already eaten them), bread made from porridge and flour, or a fish if we're lucky enough to have caught one. The highlight of the day, however, is dinner. Following is a list of what we have had this past week:

• Sunday: green lentils with rice in peanutsauce followed by pancakes and fried bananas
  
• Monday: quinoa with red pesto and mango salsa
  
• Tuesday: falafel with pan fried bread and orange salad
  
• Wednesday: pacific onion soup topped with cheese
  
• Thursday: lentil burgers with mustard sauce and rice
  
• Friday: fried dorado and rice with beans and dried mushrooms, accompanied by ceviche
  
• Saturday: bean lasagne, tinned peaches and chocolate for dessert

We're quickly running out of fresh vegetables – we'll need to become more creative next week. So boys on Tupac, what did you have?

Today

(2015-11-21) Cecilie Mauritzen writes: Today turned out to be the nicest day so far. In the afternoon the sun came out in full glory, shining over our newly cleaned raft (Saturday is cleaning day on Rahiti Tane). Even the bodies were cleaned – with more than 21 degrees in the water, and the sunshine, we definitely got tropical Pacific feel. Even if we go back to the normal, gray, cold weather tomorrow, the memories of glorious Saturday November 21st will stay with us long :)

Spaghetti, anyone?

(2015-11-21) One of the items we worked hard to import to Peru was 4000 metres of 3mm Kevlar rope. The rope is used to lower and raise scientific instruments and cameras in the ocean. 4000 metres is enough the reach the deep ocean floor below us. However, we have a problem. The rope was delivered on bobbins partially made from cardboard. When stored underneath deck (which is a wet zone on a balsa raft) the cardboard has disintegrated and the rope has come off the bobbins. Getting the rope onto the SIMA-made steel bobbin will be an massive job. In the pictures, sailors Ola and David have started the work, shuffling a bag of unraveled rope between them.

Crew profile: Ola Borgfjord

(2015-11-21) Ola Borgfjord is the master sailor on board Tupac Yupanqui. He is the one who is awakened in the middle of the night when other sailors need help. Ola was also instrumental in designing the rafts, and testing scale models at NTNU. In this podcast Ola does not disclose all his secrets, but he offers you a rebate next time your order a viking ship and a balsa raft from Båskott Trebåtbyggeri (FB)!

Giant dorados secure supplies

(2015-11-21) Master fisherman David Short has done it again: a huge dorado was caught this morning, securing fat and proteins for the crew for days. Along with fellow morning watchman Jostein, the fish was tied with a rope before being lifted and photographed. The back deck is slippy due to waves breaking and the dorado, for sure, wanted to escape the pots and pans of Tupac Yupanqui. David's phone number will be disclosed when we get closer to shore – right now we're as far away from a cellphone network as anyone can get.

Rahiti Tane also reports a huge catch: master fisherman Esteban caught a 6 kg dorado, described as a blinking metallic wonderfish over VHF. Pictures will be posted in due course.

Life on a raft

(2015-11-20) After 12 days the raft teams of Kon-Tiki2 have settled into the a way of living. On Tupac Yupanqui, the youngest crew member Jostein Heidenstrøm (19) has done what many Norwegian boys did in the era of sailships – he went from school to work as a sailor. But Jostein didn't just join a sailing shim, he joind a raft! He writes:

The adventure has finally started! These first weeks have been amazing. I've been tired from time to time because of seasickness and waking up at 4AM every night, but it has all been a experience. I have learned and seen lots of new stuff already! The first days at sea were very hectic, but now all the tasks are more routine and things run smoothly. I like the raft life and I am looking forward to spend the next weeks on this raft and to celebrate Christmas on Easter Island. To sail a raft and live on e a raft is fantastic!

(Editor's note: As can be seen in the pictures above, Jostein takes on many roles onboard: raft clown, swimmer, master fisherman, budding scientist, and photographer. As we get hungrier, we especially like him as fisherman :)

Whalesurfing

(2015-11-20) Whale sightings occur almost daily on the Kon-Tiki2 rafts. (In comparison, we have not seen any sharks.) In these pictures, you can see the whale with the Rahiti Tane raft in the background. Due to our raft being low in water, we the whale is almost coming right at us. Again, we ask for help from marine biologists: What kind of whale is it?

Drifters released

(2015-11-20) Two UFO-like creatures were released by the Kon-Tiki Expedition at midnight, local time. The creatures have been kept in captivity on the front deck since our departure from Lima. Last night, Cecilie Mauritzen, Kon-Tiki2's chief scientist, gave orders to release them into the ocean. Once there, they join a herd of ocean drifters that report currents, temperature, and athmospheric pressure. Part of the Global Drifter Program (GDP), the Kon-Tiki Expedition will release 20 of these drifters in waters where few vessels travel. Last night, the sea was rough with winds at 25 knots. Notice how the person releasing the drifter is tied to the raft to not follow along with the drifter.

Welcome to the front deck

(2015-11-20) The front deck of the Tupac Yupanqui is alluring, especially in those rare moments when the sun comes out. We invite you to join the photographer, take stroll on our front deck!

Kontikikari's voice

(2015-11-19) Kari Skår Dahl is the captain of the Rahiti Tane raft. In this authetic VHF conversation, she discloses secrets from her raft (backbreaking exercises in the morning), from her work (food is a favorite topic among professionan rescuers), and a nearby Russian doctor. In the pictures, Captain Kari can be seen with her usual smile, and your starstruck correspondent. The two last pictures are take before leaving Callao. If you read Norwegian, you should also visit Kontikikari's blog.

Today's menu

(2015-11-19) Hungry sailors were offered a filling lunch on Tupac Yupaqui today. Yesterday's catch was turned into a delicious meal by our master chef Torgeir. He also found use for some of the vegetables we have, but do not know the names of. David, the fisherman, was happy to see his dorado cooked up, and asked for his phone number to be published. Unfortunately, we're well outside any cellphone network and any interested parties must wait until we reach shore. We hope that will be on Easter Island, but winds must change for us to get there. Could someone turn on the easternly, please?

In other news, the sun grazed us and our solar panels this morning. A bird was spotted from the front deck. We know the name in Norwegian (havsule), but couldn't think of the English term. Do let us know.

Our rafts

(2015-11-19) The Kon-Tiki2 Expedition sails two rafts, from South America to Easter Island. Roundtrip. The rafts are Rahiti Tane and Tupac Yupanqui. Some of these pictures are photographed from a dinghy; each raft carries a small dinghy with an outboard motor. Travelling from one raft to the other can be dangerous. You do not want to left in the Pacific on a dinghy with a broken engine. Nor do you want ot be crushed by a balsa log as the dinghy approaches the raft. But the dinghy allows for wonderful photos to be taken. We wish we had a bluer sky to offer, but the eather has been overcast most of the time since we left Callao. We hope this will change as we further away from the mainland and the Humbholdt current.

Catch of the day

(2015-11-18) The Tupac Yupanqui crew cheered on master fisherman David Short as he reeled in a fine dorado from the Tupac Yupanqui deck today. At risk were significant supplies of fat and protein and David did not dissappoint us. David's fishing skills were further enhanced by premimum fishing gear from Penn and Abu.

A rare visit to Rahiti Tane

(2015-11-18) Today, your correspondent had a rare opportunity to visit Rahiti Tane, the raft with a female captain and mixed crew. I am happy to report that Captain Kari's raft is well-organized, well-fed, and, well, perhaps, slightly better-smelling than the Tupac Yupanqui raft. In the second picture, Kari pulls the sail while Signe keeps an eye on the rigging. In the third picture, Cecilie and the raft mascot waves to onshore followers. Notice how the eggs hang securely from the ceiling. The fourth picture shows the drying rack, radiating neatness. Thereafter sailors Signe and Gunvor discusses sailing strategies with Ola, while the men of Rahiti meet.

Local resident greets Kon-Tiki2

(2015-11-16) The Kon-Tiki2 expedition was greeted by one of the local residents of the South Pacific today. As can be seen in the video, a whale stopped by to take a deep breath alongside Tupac Yupanqui. Any marine biologsts out there who can help determine what kind of whale we met? Send us an email!

Workout session on Tupac Yupanqui

(2015-11-16) On the testosterone-laden Tupac Yupanqui raft, front-deck workout sessions bring out formidable muscle power. Hardened by raising sails and lowering guara boards on night watches, these men risk their lives inches above shark-infested waters. Notice how the rigging is reflected in Torgeir's sunglasses, how Jostein desperatly brings himself up on the 10th (and final) lapse, and how Håkon disguises his deep fears 4000 meters above the ocean floor.

NIVA's three-stage sampler deployed

(2015-11-15) The Kon-Tiki2 Expedition today deployed an advanced three-stage sampler in the South Pacific. The sampler, developed and sposored by NIVA, the Norwegian Water Research Institute, pumped 15,000 litres of South Pacific water through three filtes at a rate of 5 litres per second. The goal of the operation is to detect plastic fragments of varying sizes. The pump drew significant amounts of power from the solar-based power bank. The crew, however, were happy to sacrifice electrons in the name of science – electrons what would otherwise be wasted in onboard personal entertainment systems. The sampler is heavy and must be handled by 2-3 people. Conditions at sea were dynamic, with winds around 14 knots. The sail was lowered during deployment. More pictures

Onshore programmer charts Kon-Tiki2 voyage

(2015-11-15) Onshore progammer Ian Short has created a new map to chart voyage of the Kon-Tiki2 rafts. The new map charts our progress through the Pacific, and indiates speed, distance traveled, distance left, and even our estimated time of arrival (ETA) on Easter Island. The map is based on coordinates uploaded every 30 minutes by the Iridium GO units (seen in picture 2) that both rafts carry. The coordinates are available to anyone who would like make maps from here. The old map indicates each observation as discrete points (picture 3). For now, both are available. We also have an old-fashioned magnetic compass onbord, and this is the instrument we most rely on when sailing into the sunset.

(We can also reveal that Ian Short is David's father. At yesterday's breakfast, the crew put bets on when the raft would reach Easter Island. David's bet was on December 19, which is the same as Ian's map indicated when first published today. A coincidence? We don't think so :-)

Flying fish on deck

(2015-11-14) The first flying fish landed on the deck of Tupac Yupanqui this morning. It was quickly turned into bait, and Torgeir went fishing. Nothing. But we have five weeks or so left on this raft and will not give up.

In other news, Jostein removed a layer of salt from the solar panels, and Andrey and Daved held a concert to mark that we have been at sea for a week.

We are 300 nautical miles from the Peruvian coast. We have 1750 nautical miles left to Easter Island (as the crow flies). Exercise for readers: when will we get here?

Trawling for plastics

(2015-11-13) The Manta Trawl is an ingenious device for collecting plastic fragments in the ocean. Our raft pulls the trawl for one hour and thereafter analyze and collect the samples. Today, Jostein and Håkon found two plastic fragments (we think) and some hapless creatures. The samples are photographed, and the position and conditions of trawling is recorded. The plastics fragments are stored for onshore analysis. Some of the crew are eager ot take part in scientific research, others are more interested in the sailing part of the expedition: how to best sail a raft towards Easter Island. If this were a reality-show, no doubt the producers would have found conflicts between the two groups. On Tupac Yupanqui, however, only bliss is found. Except for the hapless creatures.

Kon-Tiki2 exposé: how they catch fish

(2015-11-13) A series of pictures from the Rahiti Tane raft reveals how fish is caught by the Kon-Tiki2 Expedition: local fishermen provide supplies. Camila II was generous to share from their catch, and the crew threw all remaining Peruvian currency in return. An ethical exchange of proteins and currency therefore took place. However, as the rafts venture further from the Peruvian coasts, fishing boats will disappear. Will the crew be able to provide for themselves? They have the best equipment, and they have been trained by Dr Hook himself. We'll follow this issue closesly in the time to come.

[The crew on Tupac Yupanqui, the other raft of the expedition, insists that there have been no contact with fishmongers, and that they have, in fact, caught one dorado themselves. Really.]

Pacific raft cuisine

(2015-11-12) We have generous supplies of food on our rafts. Some of it is meant for our return journey from Easter Island, and is stowed away. Other items are readily available for aspiring Pacific chefs. In the first picture, you see our home-made bread, based on a special bread mix with salt water from Baker Hansen in Oslo. Cecilie has even mixed in some mango, to the delight of Kari and Pål. In the second picture, the crew of Rahiti Tane hosts a dinner on the front deck, underneath a partially lowered sail. Signe, the vegetarian chef, served a fantastic meal with mango, onion and rice. Jostein (left) is eating, as is Pål and Cecilie. The fact that David, our British sailor who has taught himself sailor-Norwegian, pulls out a garbage bag is purely coincidental. The other pictures are from today's lunch on Tupac Yupanqui where chef Torgeir served a fantastic two-course meal based on one fish, a dorado caught by Jostein this morning. We still have fresh vegetables and fruits.

Jotron help secure our rafts

(2015-11-12) Safety is a concern when you set out on balsa rafts across the Pacific. The Kon-Tiki2 Expedition carry advanced safety equipment from Jotron. Jotron is a trusted name in maritime electronics, providing safety equipment for ships, oil rigs – and even balsa rafts! They happen to be based in Larvik, Thor Heyerdahl's home town, and they proudly sponsor our expedition. On board both raft have AIS SARTs (which tell others where we are in emergency), floating VHF radios, and strobe lights for the full crew. This equipment is so important to us that we delayed departure from Callao when the shipment was delayes. In the pictures, Captain Øyvin Lauten and Expedition Leader Torgeir Higraff can be seen with the orange Jotron devices.

Soaring above and looking below our rafts

(2015-11-12) The Kon-Tiki2 expedition brings more electronic devices than any raft has ever carried before. When our resident drone took off from the front deck of Tupac Yupanqui, it was a first. Taking off between sails, ropes and sailors is a challenge — landing it even more so. Our bandwidth does not permit up to publish HD movies, but even stills look gorgeous from that angle.

Below water, Rahiti Tane has a ferrybox which measures temperature, oxygen levels, pH values, and various other parameters scientists are looking for. One part of the ferrybox is the CTD, which measures conductivty (i.e. salinity), temperature, and depth. The pictures show how the CTD hangs under the raft, which moves slowly through water. NIVA, the Norwegian Water Research Institute is providing us with equipment and support — both technical and emotional. In a year of El Nino, collecting accurate data in the South Pacific is especially worthwhile. The swimmer with camera is Jostein Heidenstrøm

Meeting at sea

(2015-11-11) The two rafts of the Kon-Tiki2 Expedition met at sea today. People, skills, material items and good will moved between the rafts. The first picture shows Boris and Pål swimming between rafts. In the second picture, Captain Kari greets the other raft (du kan lese bloggen hennes). We also caught fish today! The pictures don't tell the full story, but Jostein, Cecilie, Pål and Esteban are excited to have more proteins on the raft. Meanwhile, Ola and Gunvor fixes sails.

In other news, the resident drone secured som epic footage. We believe it's the first time a drone has taken off from a balsa raft. Even more fantastic: it landed safely. Pictures will follow.

Science update from Kon-Tiki2

(2015-11-11) Cecilie Mauritzen, resident scientist, talks about problems and possibilities brought by a new day at sea. Our balsa rafts are ideal for some scientific equitmeent as they move slowly through distant waters. However, the rafts have primitive facilities with makeshift solar panels and no hardware store nearby. In the Podcast, Håkon Wium Lie also talks about good news and bad news from the echo soudners department.

Guara-board sailing in the Pacific

(2015-11-10) Our rafts do not have rudders or propellers to steer us towards Easter Island. Instead we use the famed guara boards. These are movable mini-keels placed front, middle and aft. By adjusting these boards up or down a notch, we can set a course – and the 30-ton raft listens willingly.

In other news, BBC asked why you would you cross the Pacific on a wooden raft?, and the meterorological data we submit are available here

Starry night in South Pacific

(2015-11-10) In a late-night talk with Torgeir Higraff, he discusses the bistorical background for the Kon-Tiki2 expedition, the traffic situation in Lima, and importance of starry nights in the South Pacific. Podcast by Håkon Wium Lie. We encourage reuse of content on this page, as long as the Kon-Tiki2 Expedition is credited.

Kongsberg echo sounders look down onto life

(2015-11-10) As part of the scientific program on the Kon-Tiki2 expedition, we bring advanced echo sounders from Kongsberg Maritime. The sounders themselves are mounted underneath the Tupac raft, and the electronics sit inside the cabin. In these pictures, you can see screenshots of from the software analyzing the life below our raft. Spot any sharks?

Oatmeal-con-banana for breakfast, scientific equipment recovered, trawling for plastics

(2015-11-09) The crew on the Tupaq Yupanqui raft were served oatmeal porrage with Peruvian bananas for breakfast. After breakfast, an important scientific instrument was recovered in pristine condition below deck (which can be quite wet on a balsa raft). The Manta Trawl, which filters water looking for plastics, was deployed for an hour and the crew started analyzing the findings (more pictures). We can also report of Fair winds, blue skies, and a starry night in the southern hemisphere. For programmers: Our satellite units report our positions every 30 minutes. As an excercise in programming, we invite people to fetch the raw data and create a better visualization of our progress than can be found on our map. You can fine raw data files here. Please send an email to h@kontiki2.com if you have a solution.

First day at sea – sailing into the sunset

(2015-11-08) The first day at sea started in Lima fog, and ended with two rafts sailing into a beautiful sunset. One of the goals of the expedition is to show that balsa rafts can be sailed, and not just drift. The first day was therefore used to learn the ropes, and – more imoportantly – the guara boards. The rafts do not have rudders, but navigate by raising and lowering guara boards front and aft on the rafts. A fregate from the Peruvian Navy paid us a visit mid day and its helicopter found some compelling angles for their cameras.

Kon-Tiki2 leaves Peru for Easter Island!

(2015-11-07) The Kon-Tiki2 expedition today left Peruvian shores for its journey to Easter Island. In a ceremony at the Esucala Naval, Admiral Delinenars of the Peruvian Nany underlined the importance of the project, for historical and scientific reasons. The crew, and — in particular — expedition leader Torgeir Higraff — was overjoyed to finally head to sea after weeks of hard work. Higraff thanked the Peruvian Navy and all friends in Peru for helping make the Expedition come true, and Roberto Sala in particular. One hour after departing, the Manta trawl from 5 Gyres was out in the watre, looking for plastics. An expedition filled with scientific research and experimental archeology has started!

We're leaving today!

(2015-11-07) After years of planning, and months of hard work in Peru, the two Kon-Tiki2 rafts will leave port today, at 3PM. We will be escorted out into the Humbholdt current and start sailing tomorrow morning. The crew is trying to make sure all is ready and stowed for a 6-week-or-so journey to the wonderful and mysterious island of Rapa Nui. Updates on this page will may not be so frequent in the weeks to come, but we will try to upload images to this page if the satellites are in the right constellations. We would like to thanks our Peruvian hosts at SIMA and the Peruvian Navy at Escuela Navale. Also, we are grateful to the people who have helped us bring equipment into Peru, and those who have helped us with the necessary paperwork and licenses. Let's go!

Technological tour of the Kon-Tiki2 rafts

(2015-11-06) Another wonderful video by Luis Herrera, this time with a focus on the technology on board the rafts. Follow Håkon Wium Lie the Expedition's CTO, on a technological tour on the rafts.

Final preparations

(2015-11-05) Still in port, waiting for final shipment of scientific instruments to join us. Eager to sail, we hear Rapa Nui calling in the far distance.

Kon-Tiki2 launch party

(2015-10-30) In a grand finale at La Punta, the Kon-Tiki2 expedition celebrated the launch and honored the people who have made the building of the rafts possible. Among the speakers were Hege Araldsen (the Norwegian ambassador to Peru), Torgeir Higraff (the Kon-Tiki2 expedition leader), Jan Morten Ruud and Harald Wium Lie (from Nexia, who sponsored the event). Many of the participants hail from Fosen Folk High School, and Wiggo Sten Larsen honored his students there. Roberto and Lilly Sales, Heikki and Heidi Niskanen, and workers from the SIMA shipyard were also called forward to receive a well-deserved applause for their skilled contributions to a challenging project. Finally, Morten Holtan from Thor Heyerdahl High School in Larvik was thanked for his many hours of cheerful woodworking.

Kon-Tiki2 launches two rafts in stylish ceremony

(2015-10-30) In a stylish ceremony at the Peruvian Navy's shipyard, SIMA, the Kon-Tiki2 expedition successfully launched two rafts. After singing the Norwegian and Peruvian national anthems, both vessels and their crew were blessed by Father Guillermo Oviedo of the Escuela Naval del Peru. To the cheering of the crowd, the rafts were baptised and launched in the sea. Expedition leader Torgeir Higraff and officers of the Peruvian navy were interviewed by national and international media. The rafts will proceed to the Escuela Naval for final preparations before the journey to Easter Island.

More pictures

Kon-Tiki2 Press Conference

(2015-10-28) The Kon-Tiki2 expedition met the press at the SIMA shipyard in Lima today. Expedition leader Torgeir Higraff explained how the expedition would contribute to environmental research, as well as experimental archeology. The Peruvian Navy, which hosts the building of the two rafts, underlined the importance of such expeditions.

How to survive six weeks on a raft

(2015-10-27) Fish is a natural food source on the ocean, and the KonTiki2 crew will eat much of it thanks to Dr Hook — also known as Geir Sivertsen — who brought us plenty of fishing gear. An enthusiastic crew increased their chance of having a healthy diet for the next months by parttaking in his lecture on fishing from rafts.

Volunteers, we salute you!

(2015-10-26) Without volunteers, there would be no rafts. We have a fantastic group of young and old people working at the shipyard where the rafts are built. Many of them are highly skilled in the craft of boatbuilding, others come with energy, enthusiasm and a strong will to learn. All of them experience something unique: to build ocean-going rafts in our day and age.

Kon-Tiki2 — documenting the building process

(2015-10-22) Luis Herrera has spent some days with the Kon-Tiki2 builders in Lima. He has produced a fantastic documentary which shows how the rafts are being built. Meet Torgeir Higraff and the others, and learn how to build a raft!

The story of balsa

(2015-10-21) The Kon-Tiki2 rafts are made of balsawood, from the same place where Thor Heyerdahl found his trunks in 1947. What you may not know is that balsa from our supplier 3A Composites is used in so many other modern constructions, some of them essential for energy supply in the future. In this video, you will learn more about the material that will keep us afloat.

Night shifts to day: two rafts take shape

(2015-10-20) Our team of volunteers continue to work hard at the SIMA shipyard in Lima. Two balsa rafts are being built with enormous logs from 3A Composites in Ecuador. New workers arrive daily to make sure the rafts are ready for departure on Nov, 1st. Håkon Wium Lie also talked with two of the crew members: Gunvor and Signe:

Rapid progress in building rafts

(2015-10-18) A team of volunteers are working hard at the SIMA shipyard in Lima. Two balsa rafts are being built with enormous logs from 3A Composites in Ecuador. We have some advantages over raftbuilders of the past: we have chainsaws and electric drills. Also, we have some disadvantages: we need to deal with customs, and we don't have dictatorial power over the volunteers' schedules. However, the rafts will sail from Lima on Nov 1st and the race is on to make sure they are ready. Fantastic photos by Camote Luis Herrera.

Second Kon-Tiki voyage to map Great Pacific Garbage Patch

(2015-10-13) Lisa Suhay of the Christian Science Monitor has written an article about how the Kon-Tiki2 Expedition will map the Great Pacific Garbage Patch:

The Peruvian Current has never before been mapped for plastic and molecular pollution. The balsawood rafts are perfect platforms to make people aware of this giant environmental problem.

Scientific research on the rafts

(2015-10-10) Cecilie Mauritzen is the Chief Scientist of the Kon-Tiki2 expedition. In this podcast she discusses the scientific research that will take place on the two rafts, the challenge of organizing it, and the possibility of getting a good night's sleep. Favorite quote: We do microplastic in ways one couldn't dream of just three years ago

Searching for wine in Chile

(2015-10-08) Torgeir Higraff writes from Chile: On the western coast of Norway my mother was raised with nine brothers and sisters as a worker in the fields and mountains only helped by the Norwegian Fjord Horse. For that reason it was relatively easy to choose the wine for our expedition, even in Maipo Valley, Chile. The first thing I noticed in the Odfjell wineyard was several horses of this strong breed, one of the oldest in the world. Then Tomas Uribe presented me to how wine can be made in a sustainable way, and the many challenges in the production line. I share Uribes passion, but not his expertise! The wine we will enjoy in calm days on our rafts is named after what we pick up in huge numbers every night from the bamboo deck, flying fish.

The armada of Chile supports Kon-Tiki2

(2015-10-06) Torgeir Higraff, the Kon-Tiki2 expedition leader writes from Valparaiso: Today I had the pleasure of meeting Rear Admiral Mr José Miguel Rivera Sariego, Deputy Chief of the Estado General High Command of the Chilean Armada. I was received very well in the headquarter in Valparaiso in the office of the admiral. What Mr. Rivera Sariego said I will never forget; "The safety of people in Chilean waters is of great interest of the Chilean Armada, so naturally one of the greatest search and rescue vessels in the world will be stand by for Kon-Tiki2". We are proud to have the generous support from the naval forces of both Peru and Chile – in the name of science.

Logs arrive at shipyard

(2015-10-02) We are overjoyed to finally have balsa logs at the SIMA shipyard where the rafts will be built. Two containers with 11 meter logs arrived today. These logs will be used as crossbars, on top of the main logs (which are 17 meters longs).

GE provides Portable Ultrasound Equipment

(2015-10-01) GE Vscan Dual Probe is an amazing tool when it comes to examine patients at the accident site. Instead of bringing the patient to the machine, it's now possible to bring the machine to the patient. This is a great advantage when treating severely ill patients, when the doctor wants to take a "quick look" at the bedside, or in prehospital environments, like at the Kon-Tiki2 Expedition. In a worst case scenario, the Vscan can help the doctors on board the rafts identify internal bleedings, heart failures, pneumothorax and other acute diseases. In addition, it can be an excellent tool for needle guidance. Hopefully it will NOT be used, but to have it on the raft will increase the safety for all the crew. In the photo: Håvard Giske, Lead Project Integrator, GE Vingmed Ultrasound AS and Pål Børresen, XO on Rahiti Tane.

Raftbuilders arriving in Peru

(2015-09-27) After two weeks of hiking in the Andes, a team of boatbuilders has arrived at the coastal town of Callao in Peru. Hosted by the Peruvian Navy, the team stays at the Escuela Naval del Peru.

Building and testing raft models

(2015-09-03) How should one best build a balsa raft? Pointy front? Shaped logs? Does it make a difference? Crew member Ola Borgfjord (seen in the picture) has build several models along with his father, Einar Borgfjord. The results indicate that a curved front and tapered logs in the back will be a good choice for the rafts.

Balsa trees on their way to Peru

(2015-08-31) Now that the balsa trees are on their way to Peru and the expedition moves location from Ecuador it is time to highlight a few of the team members who will not sail on the logs. On the topic "archaeology of Ecuador" Gustavo Costa von Buchwald has been consulting Kon-Tiki2. The Canadian-born Ecuadorian argue that trade – and the human urge to know the unknown – always was the motive for long distance voyages.

"My relation with the Kon-Tiki dates to 1947, when Thor Heyerdahl contacted my grandfather, Gustavo von Buchwald, also called the King of Balsa in Ecuador, for the supply of balsawood for his expedition. The idea of pre-Columbian long distances voyages has fascinated me all my life. How could 'primitive people' have the knowledge and courage to travel so far away?"

Gustavo Costa von Buchwald has a Master in Archaeology from Guayaquil Ecuador and is a Member of the Academy of History of Ecuador. He has published four books and 47 articles about archaeology, anthropology and ethnology of Ecuador and Peru.

"As a scientific adviser to the Kon-Tiki 2 expedition, I highlight the facts proving that the pre-Columbian world was connected with other parts of the Pacific. The expedition will also help us to consider the negative impact that our "progress" causes on the oceans and environment. The planet earth is the only place we humans can live."

Another Ecuadorian member of the team is the engineer Carlos Giler Hidalgo who also lives in Guayaquil. As one of the experts on balsawood trees working for 3AComposites he has been consulting not only Kon-Tiki2, but also Tangaroa ten years ago (photo of Olav Heyerdahl, Carlos Giler and the coral snake). To pick the best trees for the expedition is one of the most crucial tasks to achieve success.

Scientific workshop at Marintek

(2015-08-26) Marintek, one of the blue planet's foremost marine research labs, hosted a workshop on scientific research onboard the Kon-Tiki2 rafts. Due to the rafts' slow movement through distant parts of the Pacific, the expedition may provide valuable observations. For example, plastic pollution can be measured, as can oxygen levels, salinity and water temperatures. In the pictures, Kon-Tiki2's chief scientist, Cecilie Mauritzen, is discussing with NTNU professors Asgeir Sørensen and Geir Johnson. Meanwhile, Håkon Wium Lie learns how to measure the clarity and color of the sea.

Oslo bakery provides food for hungry Kon-Tiki2 crew

(2015-08-25) Founded in 1861, Baker Hansen is an Oslo-based baking company. In 1893, they sponsored the polar expedition of Fridtjof Nansen, providing bread for him and his men. Now, 122 years later, Baker Hansen is still in business and is still sponsoring explorers and their expeditions. Taking into account that fresh water is a valuable commodity on ocean-going expeditions, Baker Hansen has created a specially crafted flour mixture, one that mixes with 80% salt water and 20% fresh water. The crew of the Kon-Tiki2 expedition will enjoy freshly baked bread every morning of their trip. The rafts will carry sufficient flour mixture to bake 350 loaves, thanks to the sponsorship of Baker Hansen. In the pictures, Morten Hals CEO and his son Knut Andreas Hals meet with members of the crew.

Radio Medico provides medical training

(2015-08-18) Radio Medico at the Haukeland Hospital in Bergen is a centre for maritime medicine in Norway. Today, they provided high-tech medical training for the Kon-Tiki2 crew. The rafts will have two onboard medical doctors, Boris Romanov and Sergey Goltsov, who were introduced to the services Radio Medico can provide. For example, Radio Medico can provide a second opinion before treatment of an illness starts. It will be possible to call Radio Medico from satellite phones onboard the rafts. The training focused on how to communicate and provide the specialists at Haukeland proper facts about the patient. TV2, a Nowegian broadcaster, covered the event.

Meeting with Mayor of Asker

(2015-08-14) Torgeir Higraff and Pål Børresen, both from the Asker area west of Oslo, visited the Mayor of Asker, Lene Conradi. She showed great interest and enthusiasm for the Kon-Tiki2 expedition.

Gylling provides batteries for Kon-Tiki2

(2015-08-14) Gylling Teknikk AS is a provider of top-of-the-line batteries. Among their customers is Redningsselskapet (Norwegian Society for Sea Rescue), who work in challenging maritime enviroments. Kon-Tiki2 will use a solar panel system to charge batteries. In turn, these batteries will run various electonic devices, including life-important satelite transceivers. In the picutres, Einar Tolpinrud, head of the battery unit at Gylling, hands over suitable batteries to Torgeir Higraff, Kon-Tiki2 expedition leader. Håkon Wium Lie, who is in charge of all electrons onboard the rafts, used the opportunity to ask questions about optimal charging strategies. Suitably, the batteries were transported in an electic car.

Brynje provides underwear for Kon-Tiki2

(2015-08-13) Most known for polar expeditions, "Brynje of Norway" has a few underwear-designs much similar to the viking armour. The Tangaroa Expedition was supported by Brynje in 2006 across the Pacific in the wake of Kon-Tiki with average temperatures of 22 degrees, but it turned out to be necessary with warm underwear specially during nightwatches. Øyvin Lauten, then XO on the raft, preferred to use the polar equipment from Brynje every night – and he still wears it after 9 years! Kon-Tiki2 will sail in much colder temperatures than Tangaroa. The manager, Bjørn Jacob Melsom, makes sure that all crew members will stay warm, from Peru to Easter Island and back to South America in the Roaring Forties.

Meeting the Chilean ambassador to Norway

(2015-08-12) The Kon-Tiki2 expedition today met with the Chilean ambassador to Norway, Sr. José Miguel Cruz Sánchez. Expedition leader Torgeir Higraff, along with Pål Børresen and Håkon Wium Lie, presented the expedition and discussed various ways to collaborate. Like Norway, Chile has a long coastline and the rafts will spend much time in Chilean waters.

Jotron help secure our rafts

(2015-07-31) Jotron is a trusted name in maritime electronics, providing safety equipment for ships, oil rigs – and balsa rafts! They happen to be based in Larvik, Thor Heyerdahl's home town, and they proudly sponsor our expedition. Today we met to learn more about the equipment they suggest we take on board, including AIS Class A transceivers (which tell others where we are), AIS SARTs (which tell others where we are in emergency), floating VHF radios, and strobe lights for the full crew. They mayor of Larvik took part in the meeting to highlight the importance of continued maritime enterprises in Larvik.

Liv Arnesen joins our crew

(2015-07-28) Torgeir writes: while I was stuck in high school, Liv led the first unsupported woman's crossing of the Greenland Ice Cap. A few years later, Liv made international headlines by becoming the first woman in the world to ski solo and unsupported to the South Pole -- a 50-day expedition of some 745 miles (1,200 km). I'm very proud that Liv has joined our crew on Kon-Tiki2. Check her fantastic career and her new important focus on access to water at her web site.

Building two rafts with one team

(July 2015) Kon-Tiki2 has become a big team. In September we all gather in Callao with the Peruvian Navy in Escuela Naval (photo) to construct the two rafts made of balsa selected with help from 3A Composites. "I take part in this because it is exciting to try to understand our forefathers way of thinking, to use the nature as a tool to make navigation on the big ocean possible, to work with the nature", says Espen Rathe, one of the team members. Katarina Kierulfova from Slovakia look forward to make an oceangoing vessel out of balsawood, bamboo and reed. "At Fosen Folkehøgskole I found out how much I enjoy making boats, although I grew up in a country with no coastline". Kirstine Schøler Hjort, a Danish raft builder who also has background from Fosen FHS, wants to understand the theories of Thor Heyerdahl. "I want to learn how to make boats the traditional way, to use ancient tools and to sail a boat without engine. Now I can use my skills and at the same time take part in a cool project."

Which satellite transceiver will get us online?

(July 2015) In 2008, the Tangaroa expedition used this fabulous antenna to stay in touch. Some things have changed since then: Opera Mini offers compressed web connections and new, and smaller, hardware have arrived. For example, the Iridium GO and the IsatHub iSavi are relatively affordable units that connect on-raft devices to the internet through satellites. To the seasoned marine electronic geeks out there: what connection would you trust the most – a vintage Nera F77 or the newer devices?

Workshop

April 2015: Workshop with veteran explorer Bjorn Heidenstrom to discuss devices to bring onboard.

Logging balsa in Ecuador

(March 2015) The best balsa comes from plantations in Ecuador. Here are some pictures from our journey to find the very best trees, which will float to Easter Island – and back! In these pictures you can see expedition leader Torgeir Higraff and his crew selecting balsa and bamboo for the rafts. Thanks to our sponsor AirexBaltekBanova, this massive massive undertaking is possible.