During his time as a sailor, he was shipwrecked at the uninhabited Kerguelen Islands, which led to a three-and-a-half-year stay there.

[1] John Nunn was born the son of a fisherman on 2 July 1803 in Harwich, Essex, England.

At the age of 15, he started regular training and work on a turbot fishing trawler.

He survived it sinking in the surf in heavy weather, went back to England, and continued to work as a fisherman on various boats.

During a later search, the mother ship no longer found the excursion participants and sailed back to England without them.