When John Fairfax and Silvia 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 the 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. This book is their own joint record, based on the separate log they each kept, of their preparations for the voyage, and 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 storms, shipwreck, and, most terrifying of all, the shark bite which brought John Fairfax bear death. In their own words they describe how they coped with the ordinary incidents of everyday living in such a confined space and in such extraordinary. Their close partnership triumphed over all the passing strains and perils of their experiences and has resulted in a remarkable book about their unique achievement. - http://ocean-rowers-essentials.myshopify.com/products/oars-across-the-pacific