The British Columbia couple whose remains recently washed ashore on remote Sable Island, Nova Scotia, have been identified as James Brett Clibbery, 70, and his wife, Sarah Packwood, 54.
Clibbery's sister, Lynda Spielman, said Tuesday that RCMP had confirmed their identities.
Spielman, a Calgary resident, said she has heard many theories about what happened to the adventurous couple after June 11, when they left Halifax Harbour in a 43-foot sailboat en route to the Azores.
Spielman declined to speculate on what happened during what was expected to be a 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) journey to the Portuguese archipelago, and mounted police said they were still investigating.
On Monday, the RCMP confirmed it had identified Clibbery's body with the help of the provincial medical examiner's office, but declined to release his name, citing privacy legislation.
RCMP had previously confirmed that the couple's sailboat, the Theros, had been reported missing on June 18. But it wasn't until July 10, nearly a month after they left, that their bodies were found in a three-metre inflatable boat on Sable Island, about 280 kilometres southeast of Halifax.
The Theros has not yet been found. A spokesperson for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, which investigates marine accidents, said the agency was still gathering information about the vessel's disappearance.
Clibbery and Packwood, who lived on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia, described themselves as adventurous travelers. They regularly posted details of their trips on a YouTube channel called “Theros Sailing Adventures.”
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The channel features videos of ocean voyages that span from Canada's West Coast to the Panama Canal, and from Central America to the Maritimes. The couple can often be seen smiling on the open sea aboard their two-masted yacht GibSea, which is equipped with an electric motor powered by solar panels.
“Yes, they were quite the duo and will be missed,” Spielman said in an email. “Theros Sailing Adventures has really been their life story almost since the day they met. They will always be there with their YouTube videos. Real characters.”
In a short video posted June 8, Packwood included footage of the sailboat at the Dartmouth Yacht Club in Nova Scotia, across Halifax Harbour, where she said the couple was preparing for their “Green Odyssey” adventure.
“If all goes well and the weather permits, the captain and I plan to set sail in the next day or two for an ocean crossing,” Packwood’s post reads. “I will endeavor to document our experiences throughout the voyage and may post videos when we reach land.”
The video shows the exterior of the sleek sailboat and ends with the message “See you on the other side” superimposed over a partly cloudy sky.
On June 11, Clibbery posted a video on Facebook showing himself at the helm of the Theros as the boat was about 15 kilometres off the south coast of Nova Scotia, heading southeast at 5.5 knots.
“We’re moving away,” Clibbery said, with the vast blue of the North Atlantic in the background. “A big ship behind us, coming from Halifax.”
Spielman said Packwood's career focused on humanitarian work in Sudan, Kosovo, Macedonia, Africa, Asia and Latin America. As for her brother, she said Clibbery worked as a locomotive engineer for Canadian Pacific and retired at age 55.
Clibbery and Packwood first met in May 2015 at a bus stop in London, where Clibbery was undergoing tests before donating a kidney to his sister Glory, who was living in the UK at the time.
Packwood, who worked in London at the UK Department for International Development, recalled her first impression of the man. “I thought Brett was so handsome, like Robert Redford,” she told London’s Guardian newspaper in October 2020. “He was very interesting and talkative.”
The couple discovered a shared passion for travel and their relationship blossomed. He proposed to her in the spring of 2016 while she was visiting his home on Salt Spring Island.
“He took me on my first ever yacht trip and I loved it,” Packwood said. “Brett proposed to me in the master cabin of the boat.”
Their sailing adventures began the following year.
Clibbery told the Guardian he was impressed by his wife's ingenuity. “She's an extraordinary woman who doesn't let anything stand in her way,” he said. “Not even months of seasickness when we went to sea.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 23, 2024.
This is a corrected version. A previous version incorrectly stated Theros' speed as the ship left Nova Scotia.
© 2024 The Canadian Press
