Thor Heyerdahl went from Peru to Easter Island in a reed mat with
a sail to prove that Incas could have settled Easter Island or
some such thing. The fact that Easter Islanders were polynesian
in origin didn't help his theory very much. But, for the 1950's,
it made for a good book, much like the parachutists who made a
documentary about smashing and crippling themselves in an attempt
to land on top of an Amazonian Tepui.
Then, Heyerdahl repeated his epic voyage by going from North Africa
to Barbados in a reed boat, to try and prove the Mayans and Aztecs
got their pyramid ideas from the Egyptians. On his first attempt he
cut a rope on the stern of the raft because he considered it to
be a useless ancient Egyptian decoration, then afterward suddenly realized
that it kept the stern of the raft from turning to rubber...forcing
he and his crew to abandon ship. On his second attempt, he left
the rope alone and made it.
These so called "explorers" often have much more in common with
Evel Knieval than science. I mean characters like Eric Von Dannikan
(who by the way spent some time in Prison before he wrote his books).
Some of these people are are dubious figures at best.
Jacques Cousteau tends to have much better P.R. than the others
and actually does legitimate explorations, experiments, and new
equipment and techniques. I don't know where he gets his money,
though. One cynical friend suggested that he was using Calypso
to run dope between continents because nobody would bother to
search such a high prestige figure and his ship. I tend to doubt
this theory as I always watched his national geographic documentaries
as a kid and was suitably impressed, of course only believing that
he had high values. Hmmm...does make you wonder. No flames, please.
Bob Ballard is another highly legitimate explorer, mainly because he's
the Tom Clancy techno-thriller king of ocean science going after only
high visiblity name recognition sunken ships. I don't think you'd
catch him looking for the S.S. Kermudgin or some such ship.
What does this have to do with CPs? Not much!
Happy New Year! Looking forward to sprouting some Nepenthes
seed in Jan. '95!
---Steve