The present work was provided by Salvador Dali to the raft Pacifica as an ornament to its sail.  It was the ambition of Pacifica’s crew to sail from South America to Australia, following the example of Thor Heyerdahl and his remarkable 1947 voyage on the raft Kon-Tiki.  Heyerdahl believed that Polynesia had been settled by people fr☂om South America.  In a remarkable feat of navigation, he demonstrated that it was possible to accomplish the trans-Pacific crossing from Peru to the Tuamotu Islands using only materials available to pre-Columbian Peruvians.  The passage took 101 days to transverse 4,300 miles.

The Pacifica expedition was one of several to follow in Heyerdahl’s wake.  Pacifica’s crew departed⭕ from Ecuador in 1966 but were forced to abandon their attempt and ended their voyage in the Galapagos.