Kon-Tiki was the name of a tiny balsa-wood raft, constructed by Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl. It was Heyerdahl's contention that pre-Columbian Polynesian natives had regularly made trips across the ocean in similar rafts. To prove his theory, Heyerdahl set sail in the Kon-Tiki in 1947, successfully completing a 4300-mile journey from Peru to Tahiti. Filmed en route with 16-millimeter camera equipment, Kon-Tiki was originally released in Sweden in tandem with the publication of Heyerdahl's book about the expedition. You don't have to build your own balsa-wood raft to travel to the very heart of the South Pacific. All you have to do is book into luxurious SOHANO OCEAN VIEW APARTMENTS on tropical Sohano Island in Buka Passage.

 

Terms of venery, or collective nouns, were all the rage in the Middle Ages. Derived from the sport of hunting, they indicated collections of beasts and birds. And as anything fashionable is then adopted and adapted for other purposes, special collective nouns were invented for and applied to things and people. So what do you call a collection of islands? Gavan Daws calls his book about famous people whose lives were linked to islands - Paul Gauguin, Robert Louis Stevenson, Walter Murray Gibson, Hermann Melville and John Williams - "A Dream of Islands", and what an aptly evocative description it is! Your dream of islands will become reality when you book into luxurious SOHANO OCEAN VIEW APARTMENTS on tropical Sohano Island in Buka Passage.

 

Spiral Island is the name of two floating artificial islands in Mexico built by British artist Richart "Richie" Sowa. The first was destroyed by a hurricane in 2005; the second has been open for tours since 2008. The first Spiral island was located in a lagoon near Puerto Aventuras, on the Caribbean coast of Mexico south of Cancún; Sowa began constructing it in 1998. He filled nets with empty discarded plastic bottles to support a structure of plywood and bamboo, on which he poured sand and planted numerous plants, including mangroves. The island sported a two-story house, a solar oven, a self-composting toilet, and three beaches. He used some 250,000 bottles for the 66 feet (20 m) by 54 feet (16 m) structure. The mangroves were planted to help keep the island cool, and some of them rose up to 15 feet (4.6 m) high. The island was destroyed by Hurricane Emily in 2005. In late 2007 and 2008, Sowa built a new Spiral Island in the waters of Isla Mujeres, the "Island of Women", also near Cancun. It opened for tours in August, 2008. It is referred to by Richie as Joyxee Island. The new island was initially 20 metres (66 ft) in diameter, which has since expanded to 25 metres (82 ft), and plants and mangroves are already growing on it. It contains about 100,000 bottles. The new island has three beaches, a house, two ponds, a solar-powered waterfall and river, a wave-powered washing machine and solar panels. Volunteers helped with the project. Sowa will continue to make improvements to the Island, so it will always be a work of art in progress. You won't need to collect empty bottles to live on your own island. In fact, you need to do nothing more than book into luxurious SOHANO OCEAN VIEW APARTMENTS on tropical Sohano Island in Buka Passage.