15.1 Readers' Forum - Tangaroa - Paula Saeverud Higraff

Volume 15.1
Page 28

Readers' Forum - Tangaroa
Paula, Welcome to the World of Adventure and Discovery

See major article about the Tangaroa raft sailing the Pacific in our Winter 2006 issue.

Congratulations to Torgeir Saeverud Higraff and his wife Mona of Norway on the birth of their daughter Paula in January 2007. The long-awaited event for the family occurred about nine months after the launching of the Tangaroa balsa raft in Callao, Peru, in April 2006.

Above left: Proud Mom - Mona Saeverud
Middle: Baby-Paula Saeverud Higraff
Right: Proud Dad - Torgeir Higraff

The Tangaroa voyage was inspired by archaeologist Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki expedition across the Pacific in 1947. Higraff, the Expedition Leader of the Tangaroa, along with his crew (including Heyerdahl's grandson) made the 4,000-mile oceanic journey from the coast of South America to the Polynesian Islands in a record-breaking 70 days. The couple had spent their honeymoon in 2003 in Ecuador in search of balsa logs.

Azerbaijan International published a major feature about the construction of the Tangaroa and the rationale for the journey in the Winter 2006 issue (AI 14.4). See "Tangaroa: Pacific Voyage. Testing Heyerdahl's Theories about Kon-Tiki 60 Years Later." Search Tangaroa at AZER.com. Azerbaijan International joins the Higraffs in welcoming Paula into the big, grand world of adventure and discovery of her parents.

Left: Tangaroa balsa raft, whose six-member crew led by Norwegian Torgeir Saeverud Higraff, crossed the Pacific in Spring 2006.

Both Heyerdahl and Higraff had been several times to Azerbaijan where they have good friends.