"John Fairfax, who died on 8th February in Henderson, Nevada, was the
first person to row solo across an ocean.
In 1969 he spent 180 days alone at sea to row across the Atlantic from
the Canaries to Florida. In 1971/2 he rowed across the Pacific with his
girlfriend, Sylvia Cook.
John Fairfax
"A colourful character never at a loss for a quotable soundbite,
Fairfax was a precocious adventurer. At 13 he left his mother, then
living in Argentina, to “live like Tarzan” in the jungle. He spent time
with local peasants, foraged for food, and hunted jaguar and ocelot for
skins which he sold in Buenos Aires. Subsequent adventures saw him drive
from New York to San Francisco, ride a bike from San Francisco to
Guatemala, hitchhike to Panama, and make his first million by smuggling
contraband with pirates. And all this by the age of 25.
After making his way back to Argentina on horseback he tried to
figure out what to do with his next quarter-century. As a child he had
read about the 1896 crossing of the Atlantic in a rowboat by Harbo and
Samuelson (
fantastic book about this voyage), and it had captured his imagination. Now he stumbled across a report about the recent 1966 crossing of the Atlantic by
Ridgway and Blyth. The record for the first solo crossing was up for grabs.
"Less than twenty hours after launching from the Canaries in 1969 he
was wondering what had possessed him to believe that this was a good
idea. But a cigar and a steaming cup of tea laced with brandy apparently
gave him renewed motivation, and 180 days later he successfully arrived
on Hollywood Beach in Florida, and went on to row the Pacific with
Sylvia Cook 2 years later.
I feel a certain amount of empathy with John Fairfax. I, too, have
rowed solo across oceans. I, too, have frequently found it “a miserable
journey”, as he described his Pacific crossing. I, too, have felt the
boredom and frustration of the crossing, and the euphoria of arrival.
Shark populations devastated by 80%
"However, in one key regard, Fairfax and I have had profoundly
different ocean experiences. When he was rowing the oceans forty years
ago, shark populations were around five times what they are now.
Shark-finning, by-catch, and the demolition of the ocean food pyramid
have
devastated populations of sharks and other apex predators. Fairfax happily describes how he lassoed and killed a dusky shark. Now he would be lucky to see one.
Forty years ago we had no notion of climate change or
ocean acidification, although the process was already underway.
Two-thirds of the world’s coral reef systems are now damaged,
with ten percent being degraded beyond recovery thanks to coastal
development, destructive fishing practices, pollution, and mining, as
well as rising acidity.
"The Atlantic that John Fairfax rowed across still had a thriving cod fishing industry. By 1992,
Northern Cod biomass had dropped to one percent of its previous levels, and the Canadian government was forced to declare a moratorium on Atlantic fisheries.
The first container ship launched just over a decade before Fairfax’s voyage, in 1956. Today there are
over 50,000 container ships plying the world’s oceans, transporting everything from cars to kiwifruit. It has been estimated that
one container ship pollutes as much as 50 million cars
due to their enormous weight and the low quality of their fuel,
contributing up to 30 percent of the nitrogen oxide that leads to acid
rain.
Plastic bags at sea
"When John Fairfax rowed across the Pacific with Sylvia Cook, the
plastics industry was still in its infancy. Now there are an estimated
3.5 million tons of plastic floating in the North Pacific Gyre, just one
of
five oceanic gyres
around the world where plastic pollution accumulates, leaching toxic
chemicals such as BPA into seawater and killing marine life.
"It was concern over our unsustainable use of the world’s resources –
oceanic and otherwise – that first led me to take up my oars for the
cause. In just fifty years we have devastated the blue two-thirds of our
planet. Let’s protect our oceans and give them a chance to recover, not
just for the sake of future adventurers, but for all our sakes."
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