The remains of a couple who attempted to cross the Atlantic Ocean using solely green energy were found earlier this month after they had been missing for four weeks, officials reported.
Police did not identify the bodies discovered at Sable Island National Park Reserve in Canada, but said they were those of a 70-year-old man and a 60-year-old woman from British Columbia. A Facebook post by the man’s son, James Clibbery, later identified them as James Brett Clibbery and his wife, Sarah Justine Packwood.
The couple had left Halifax Harbor in Nova Scotia on June 11 bound for the Azores. They were reported missing on June 18.
“The past few days have been very hard,” Clibbery’s son said in the Facebook post, adding that DNA tests would be carried out to confirm their identities. “With all the news, it is hard to remain hopeful.”
On July 10, The Royal Canadian Mounted Police responded to calls that a 10-foot inflatable lifeboat containing human remains had been discovered on the park’s Reserve, according to a news release from the agency.
Sable Island is a “thin crescent of shifting land” that is about 180 miles southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia, located at the edge of the continental shelf, the Canadian government says on its website. It also says Sable Island is dually known the “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” due to the more than 350 shipwrecks off its shores.
The couple had chronicled much of their sailing expeditions and travels on social media, sharing their preparation process for the journey online. In a video posted to their YouTube channel, “Theros Adventures,” the elder Clibbery, said they had named their trip to the Azores “The Green Odyssey.” The 42-foot GibSea sailboat they used was powered by electricity and solar energy, the couple said.
“It is to show that you can travel, and you can do long distances without burning fossil fuels, without climbing onto a plane and filling the air with carbon dioxide,” Clibbery said in the video.
The final post they shared on June 11 shows Clibbery wearing a bright orange jacket describing how the beginning of their trip was going. The video ends with Clibbery signing off saying, “We’re sailing.”
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Department says it’s still investigating the deaths.
“There isn’t anything that will fill the hole that has been left by their, so far unexplained, passing,” Clibbery’s son said.
