Ok.... my own truly embarrassing sea funeral story….
In my 20’s I worked weekends skippering
water taxis and pilot
boats in
Vancouver.
Quite often we would be asked to do Sunday morning ceremonies at Pt Grey where the
family and friends would spread the ashes.
So after a particularly busy Saturday night running drunken crews and the working girls back and forth from
English harbor, we had a last minute order for a funeral early in the morning.
Taking our biggest
boat out with the
family to Point Grey, I shut the engines off and drifted with the tide near Spanish banks, watching from the stern with the passengers.
It was for an old sea
captain who had died of lung cancer and as the family made their toasts and took in the beautiful early morning on the
water, everything seemed almost perfect as they spread his ashes on the water.
That is… until I noticed that my conscientious, but sleep deprived
deckhand, who had been
cleaning up inside the
cabin after a busy night of crew runs, automatically dumped a pail full of cigarette butts collected from the ashtrays… over the side!
The rest… seemed to happen in slow motion… as the filter tips swirled down amongst the dearly departed and the tears from his widow/daughters turned into wails.
That with the murderous looks from the
men and their minister was something I would rather forget.
Suffice to say, it was a quiet and somber run back to the
dock while we all reflected upon the dangers of smoking….. (
especially my deckhand)