Christopher Noel Marshall died suddenly Feb. 10, 2006, while making an emergency landing in his hot air balloon in the Maasai Mara game reserve in Kenya.

He had been a part-time resident of South Whidbey for 14 years, as he came to spend time with his daughter, Tana Marshall Lucker, and extended family and friends here. Chris has called Kenya home for much of the the last 37 years, and will be greatly missed by many people on many continents.

Born in Inverness, Scotland on Christmas Day in 1945, Chris was the eldest of seven children, and grew up in Scotland and on his family’s farm in Sussex, England. His father was an Royal Air Force Sunderland pilot and his mother descended from Scots Norwegian seafarers, so it appears that Chris came by the adventure gene honestly. His high school years were spent at Canterbury Cathedral at King’s School Canterbury. He joined the RAF Volunteer Reserve as a cadet pilot while at Cambridge.

After graduating from King’s College, Cambridge, with master’s of arts degree honors in economics and sociology in 1967, he worked briefly as a civil servant, but craved more nature and adventure in his life.

After a short stint in the British civil service, he found employment from 1969 to 1974 with the Kenya Ministry of Finance as a senior economist/statistician in tourism and parks development. This was the beginning of his lifelong relationship with East Africa, Maasai Mara and wildlife conservation. Maasai Mara is a vast game reserve, the Kenyan part of the Serengeti, where millions of tourists come on safari to view the game and the amazing annual wildebeest migrations.

In the mid-1970s, always on the lookout for an adventure, he hooked up with two fellow adventurers as a driver for a London to Nairobi overland trip with two ex-army Bedford troop carriers loaded with 32 passengers, long range fuel and supplies.

In 1978 he graduated master’s of science degree in land and resource managemnt. He lived and worked for five years on a cooperative coffee and sisal plantation in the Machokas area of Kenya. Following that he worked as a freelance development consultant and photographer in rural development, wildlife conservation and tourism development in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

During the 1980s Chris discovered whitewater rafting and river running became one of his passions. He joined a number of exploratory rafting trips in Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Madagascar.

Chris was an entrepreneur in several realms—ecotourism, photography, film and video production, real estate as well as balloon tourism. As time went by, he also financed many Kenyans in small businesses, the extent of his patronage just becoming evident after his untimely death. Lately he had been working with the Ecotourism Society of Kenya to help promote sustainable tourism, especially in the Maasai Mara.

Chris took up ballooning in the mid-80s in Australia’s Barosa Valley. By the end of the decade he clocked enough hours to earn a commercial pilot’s license. In the early ‘90s he began piloting the large Cameron 315 balloons carrying groups of tourists on flights over Masaai Mara. Meanwhile, his own small company “Balloonabout” provided custom ballooning adventures for international and local clients in Kenya. He represented Kenya in several hot-air balloon World Championship competitions. On alternate summers he joined a group of international balloon pilots at “La Fraternite,” a biannual rendezvous in Metz, France, to commemorate the birth of ballooning in 1783. His daughter, Tana, has crewed for and flown with him at these events since she was seven. At the time of his death he was establishing the first Hot Air Ballooning Club of Kenya.

His home of the last 15 years was near Nairobi in the former frontier town of Karen. Sited near the old coffee estate of Karen Blixen, (of “Out of Africa” fame), Chris’s place is near the Karen roundabout on the road to the Ngong hills. The property includes residences, gardens and small businesses, an excellent restaurant, and Tana’s stupendous four tree, four-room treehouse with indoor plumbing.

Chris had traveled widely in Africa, as well as in Europe, Asia, Australia and the United States. He had recently renewed an interest in the Antarctic and made a couple of trips there on ships. He’d undertaken study and research on whaling history, and had recently applied to become a lecturer on cruises to Antartica from Argentina.

His life covered a broad spectrum with many vital interests; he loved to sing, and was a member of the Kenya Choral Society for many years. He enjoyed afternoon rides through the bush with friends on his horse, Tangaweeza, and was a board member of Riding for the Disabled, an equestrian program for disabled children and adults. He was a long time ham radio operator and a founding member of the Aero Club of Kenya and the Ecotourism Society of Kenya.

But probably more than anything else, friendships were very important to Chris, and he kept remarkable continuity going over the years with his friends and family around the world. He was tirelessly social and energetic, and loved nothing more than an evening of good food, music and conversation—unless it was an evening with more than one such gathering to attend! Chris brought wonderful wry humor, intellectual inspiration and a vast global perspective to our network of friends here on Whidbey, and hosted many a delightful picnic at his little cabin on Maxwelton Creek. He will be very much missed. Safari njema, Chris!

Chris is survived by his daughter, Tana; his mother, Lorna “Doone” Salveson Marshall of Spilsill Court, Kent, UK; siblings Elizabeth, Anthony, Alysoun, Nick, Judith, Patrick; and 21 nieces and nephews.