J
Fairfax and Sylvia Cook on the island of Las Palmas (Canary Islands)
on January 19th 1969, before John's start of the first
solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean |
When
John Fairfax and Sylvia Cook were swept over the Great
Barrier Reef and rowed into the shelter of Hayman Island off the
Queensland coast, they had achieved what to most people seemed an
impossibility - crossing the world's largest ocean by strength of their
own arms. It had taken them a year minus two days, with brief halts at
Ensenada in Mexico, Washington Island, and the tiny island of Onotoa.
Since Cyclone Emily some weeks before their arrival they had been given
up for lost, and their triumphant landing brought acclaim from the whole
world.
In 1973 there appeared the first American edition of their book 'Oars
Across the Pacific'.
This book is their joint record, based on the separate logs they each
kept, of their preparations for the voyage, and of what then happened
when they left San Francisco on April 26, 1971, in Britannia II,
designed by Uffa Fox. It tells of the dangers they faced, of hurricanes
and the calms, exhausting heat and tropical downpours; reeves and
coastal rocks of islands at ocean - shipwreck and the compelled stop on
one of them to repair the boat and again to leave for nowhere; sea
snakes and battle with sharks... Without a water desalinator (the stock
of fresh water had to be re-supplied on islands they came across on
their way), without solar batteries (huge and incredibly heavy primitive
batteries have added superfluous kilos to boat's weight), without GPS
(only with a compass and a sextant), let alone satellite phone and
e-mail; - without a thing that is an integral part of all modern
adventures, - they have covered more than 8.000 miles by rowing and have
triumphally finished the crossing in Australia. And thanks to Sylvia,
this crossing has come to the end safely - it was for her, on John's
recognition, that he is obliged for his life. When it remained hardly
more than a month to go to Australia, a tragic meeting with a shark had
put John's life on the edge of death: with a wounded shoulder (he was
severly bitten by the shark), he was dragged into the boat by Sylvia,
who "sewed him up" and then rowed the rest of the way single-handedly..
Sylvia became the first woman to row an ocean and holds a
well-deserved title 'The First Lady of Oceanrowing'.
"Somebody
had to be the first to prove, that it could be done. When it is done -
the door is open...", said Peter Bird (the first non-stop solo crossing
of the Pacific Ocean).
In the
last 50 years since Mt.Everest was first climbed there have been 1672
persons who reached the summit.
In 107
years of the History of Ocean Rowing there have been only 100 successful
rows across the oceans, completed by less than 170 rowers. 11 names in
this list belong to women, and only two of them - Sylvia Cook and
Kathleen Saville , - have rowed the Pacific Ocean.
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