Brett Clibbery and Sarah Packwood planned to sail across the Atlantic to Portugal on board their 42-foot sailboat, then walk the Camino trail — for the fourth time — once they reached Europe.
Tim O’Connor and husband John Dolman, friends of the couple, still remember sharing a cup of coffee with them on the morning of their departure.
“They were excited about the prospect of walking the Camino again,” said O’Connor, co-owner of TJ Beans, a coffee house in Ganges. “They just loved to travel and meet new people.”
The couple followed Clibbery and Packwood’s travels on social media as the couple drove across Canada to Halifax, where Theros, a Gib Sea 42 sloop-rigged sailboat, was waiting.
Clibbery, 70, and Packwood, 60, set off from the Dartmouth Yacht Club on June 11, bound for the Azores Islands. Photos and a video posted that day on Theros Sailing Adventure, their social-media page, put them 16 nautical miles off the coast of Nova Scotia with fair winds and calm seas.
Later, however, O’Connor and Dolman grew worried when messages went unanswered and Packwood did not post any new videos on TikTok.
They tried to track the boat online, with no success.
Unbeknownst to the two, the sailing couple had been reported lost at sea June 18. An extensive search began on July 2, when they failed to arrive at their destination as planned.
On July 12, Parks Canada staff found a three-metre long inflatable boat containing two bodies on the southern shore of Sable Island. Police believe it was the lifeboat from the Theros.
Sable Island, about 300 kilometres southeast of Halifax, is nicknamed “the graveyard of the Atlantic,” with more than 350 recorded shipwrecks in the area.
The Theros has not been found.
Dolman said when he read online about the discovery of the two bodies, he suspected it was his friends.
Since then, he and his husband have been told that Clibbery was positively identified by his tattoos. The formal identification of Packwood would have to be made by DNA testing.
“They were just the nicest people,” said O’Connor, who said he knew Clibbery for about 15 years and Packwood for the past eight.
He said Clibbery met his future wife by chance at a bus stop in London, England in 2015, when he was in the country to donate a kidney to his sister, Glory.
“They just hit it off and, a year later, they got married on board the Theros, which was docked at Kanaka Wharf in Ganges,” he said.
A year later, they sailed to Nova Scotia, heading south along the west coast, traversing the Panama Canal and travelling along the Atlantic seaboard.
They had attempted to cross the Atlantic in 2019 but turned back due to a forecast of storms.
Since the news broke of the discovery of the bodies, customers have been coming into the coffee shop, a hub in the community, reminiscing about the couple.
“A newcomer to the island told me how they were the nicest people and always showed up to help,” said O’Connor.
He recounted how the water pipes in their house froze one year and Clibbery responded to their plight.
“[The weather] was so bad, he drove off the road on his way here. He then got out of his car and walked the rest of the way,” he said.
Most people knew the couple through the sailing community, he said.
“A cashier from Thrifty’s came in and said that they were the funniest people,” said Dolman. “Honestly, it’s things like that that gets us through recent days.”
Clibbery had a nearly 50-year relationship with the sea, working as a diesel mechanic for B.C. Ferries and other marine ventures.
Packwood did a lot of freelance work online, recently completing a contract with the United Nations, said Dolman.
The couple had spent the past four years building a house by themselves, finally getting it to the “lock-up” stage before they left.
“She called him ‘captain’ and called herself the ‘carpenter’s apprentice’,” said Dolman. “They were in love. They passed away doing the thing that they loved. Their adventure continues on the other side.”
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