World
Bodies of thrill-seeking couple mysteriously found in life raft after duo set sail on cross-ocean voyage in yacht over a month ago
The bodies of a thrill-seeking Canadian couple were found in a life raft Wednesday — nearly six weeks after they left on a sailing trip across the Atlantic Ocean, according to a report.
Brett Clibbery, 70, and Sarah Justine Packwood, 54, apparently abandoned their yacht and perished on a life raft before washing up on Sable Island, nicknamed the “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” the Vancouver Sun reported.
Canadian authorities have not officially identified the tragic pair as the victims, but told the outlet that the 10-foot life raft was believed to be from a larger vessel named Theros — the same eco-friendly boat the couple had routinely documented on their travel blog account.
Clibbery and Packwood set sail on the 39-foot yacht from Halifax on June 11 with plans to cross the Atlantic to the Azores, a series of islands 900 miles west of Portugal, by July 2.
The pair were documenting their journey on their YouTube channel “Theros Adventures,” which they used to demonstrate how to travel the world via electric-, wind- and solar-powered vessels.
Their trip to the Azores was meant to be the first fully “green” journey on Theros, which the couple dubbed the Green Odyssey after they removed its diesel engine.
They had tried to cross the Atlantic in the boat once before in 2019, but were stopped by a forecast of storms.
On the day of their journey, Clibbery and Packwood shared a video that put them 16 nautical miles off the coast of Nova Scotia with fair winds and calm seas.
The video was their last. They were reported missing one week later.
Sable Island is about 175 miles south of Halifax.
Theros is still missing, the Times Colonist reported.
What went wrong and why the couple abandoned their beloved boat is still a mystery.
The pair got married on the yacht in 2016, one year after they met during a chance encounter at a bus stop in London, England.
Packwood was preparing to donate a kidney to her sister when she met Clibbery, who was visiting from Canada — a heartwarming story that was the center of a 2020 “How We Met” piece in The Guardian.
“We have been traveling and co-creating adventures ever since,” Packwood previously posted on YouTube.