No Wonder They Don’t Allow Scoutmasters to Carry Firearms Anymore
May you experience fair winds and following seas as you cross the River Styx, Mr. Fairfax…although I’m sure the afterlife is going to seem intolerably dull.
John Fairfax, Who Rowed Across Oceans, Dies at 74
He crossed the Atlantic because it was there, and the Pacific because it was also there.
…On a camping trip when he was 9, John concluded a fight with another boy by filching the scoutmaster’s pistol and shooting up the campsite. No one was injured, but his scouting career was over.
His parents’ marriage dissolved soon afterward, and he moved with his mother to Buenos Aires. A bright, impassioned dreamer, he devoured tales of adventure, including an account of the voyage of Frank Samuelsen and George Harbo, Norwegians who in 1896 were the first to row across the Atlantic. John vowed that he would one day make the crossing alone.
At 13, in thrall to Tarzan, he ran away from home to live in the jungle. He survived there as a trapper with the aid of local peasants, returning to town periodically to sell the jaguar and ocelot skins he had collected.
He later studied literature and philosophy at a university in Buenos Aires and at 20, despondent over a failed love affair, resolved to kill himself by letting a jaguar attack him. When the planned confrontation ensued, however, reason prevailed — as did the gun he had with him.
In Panama, he met a pirate, applied for a job as a pirate’s apprentice and was taken on. He spent three years smuggling guns, liquor and cigarettes around the world, becoming captain of one of his boss’s boats, work that gave him superb navigational skills.
Fun, Life | tree hugging sister | 
February 20, 2012 1:20 pm
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Ah, yet another of the giants from the previous generation leaves us. Vale, Mr. Fairfax, and may you have a boisterous voyage.