A five-year-old's dream of a raft

There sat five Norwegians and one Swede on a raft. It had consequences for a child from Southern Schleswig.

In 1947, it took Thor Heyerdahl and five friends 101 days to sail their balsa wood raft from Peru to Raroia. 33 years later, a five-year-old girl stood at the Kon Tiki Museum in Oslo and imagined that she could have been part of that expedition. That day, an idea was planted in her mind, and it grew over the decades. It would be another 45 years before the girl, as an adult, set foot in French Polynesia. As it was a dream, and not an obsession, Raroia was replaced with the neighboring atolls Fakarava and Rangiroa, both of which have a well-developed tourism infrastructure.

I arrived in Fakarava with Air Tahiti's ATR-72 at around 4 PM after a little more than two hours of flying from Tahiti. From the window, I had already caught glimpses of the promised land and thought: Well, I am certainly not in Kansas anymore, Toto. The airport building is manageable, and everything is done by hand (I felt guilty about my 16 kg heavy luggage).

The ride of six kilometers to Pension Paparara took place in the back of a truck along the atoll's only paved road. The habitable area is 100-200 meters wide and two to three meters above sea level. So the barrier reef is vital.

Upon arrival, I was shown to my small cottage, built in local style. Depending on the tide, it takes three or six steps before I have my toes in the water. The cottage is made of baby blue MDF boards, has a tin roof (it makes noise when a coconut falls), and features natural ventilation. No glass windows. There is a slight risk of dengue fever, so the bed is wrapped in a large mosquito net (which I have sprayed extra with my Canadian, devilish mosquito spray with a DEET percentage of 98 percent. I have not seen - or heard - a single mosquito last night.

The owner is French and speaks no English. I speak almost no French, so we try with the few words we each know and then with smiles and hand signals. In return, she and the staff are master chefs. Never in my life have I had such fantastic and varied prepared tuna.

Tomorrow begins my first of six diving days here in Fakarava.