PFor Gérard Ventura, there was no other choice. This true fisherman, figure of the port of Royan (17), could not imagine any other final resting place than this sea which he traveled all his life. “He always lived on a boat and survived three shipwrecks. He is where he should be,” confides one of his friends. Died last June, his ashes were scattered around the Cordouan lighthouse. “We chose this location to have a visual reference point from the coast,” confides her daughter Sandra, who admits to having been a little apprehensive about this idea. “But it was his will and ultimately we have no regrets. We experienced something very moving. After the dispersal, a colony of porpoises passed right next to us as if to accompany it in a final farewell. »
The Ventura family is not the only one to have set foot on a boat in recent months to live the last moments with a loved one. This funeral practice tends to develop. The National Sea Rescue Society (SNSM) of Royan, which offers it, has seen the number of requests explode. “We went from an average of 30 to 35 outings per year to more than 60 in 2024 and the year is not yet over,” notes the president of the station Arnaud Gayrin. In the sixteen years he has been accompanying families at sea, this is the first time he has noticed such a phenomenon. “We are a coastal area and many people have an anecdote or memories related to the marine environment. They went to swim in such a place, spent their childhood on such and such a beach…” Under the influence of these postcard landscapes, we can want to become one with them.
Iconic places
On the day chosen for the dispersion, everyone embarks on the speedboat 162 “Sieur de Mons”. Head to emblematic sites such as the church of Talmont-sur-Gironde, the Devil's Bridge in Saint-Palais-sur-Mer or the Cordouan lighthouse but always more than 300 meters from the coast.
Arnaud Gayrin is the president of the National Sea Rescue Society (SNSM) of Royan.
Fanny Blanchard
The dispersal process is modeled on what was formerly practiced in the navy. “We found old documents relating it and we proceeded in the same way. When the ashes are scattered, the fog horn is sounded to greet the deceased before making three rounds around the scattering site in a counterclockwise direction. No doubt to symbolize a step back in time. On the third and final lap, we sound the foghorn again,” explains Arnaud Gayrin. Leave your loved ones like an old sea dog and feel the sea spray one last time.
Incredible stories, beautiful or sad, sometimes mark these last goodbyes. Like these two former fighter pilots of the German and French air forces who survived a clash in the skies of Royan during the Second World War and whose ashes were scattered in the same place at the level of the Grande Chaise landmark, off the Grande Côte beach in Saint-Palais-sur-Mer.
“To grieve, some people need a place of contemplation. When making this choice, it can be complicated”
Time for reflection
SNSM is not the only one to offer this type of service. Boat rental companies, such as the Pamplemousse by Kapalouest Agency based in La Rochelle, also do it. “This type of support is not neutral. We must not let ourselves be overcome by emotion and the crew must be there to support people and reassure them. Each story is special,” underlines Anne Colson, one of the company’s managers.
Antoine Solito, territory director of the funeral service of general funeral directors for Charente-Maritime and Deux-Sèvres, still warns. “We advise families to take time to reflect. Urns can be stored for a year at the crematorium. To grieve, some people need a place of contemplation. When making this choice, it can be complicated. We need to discuss it beforehand,” he emphasizes. However, precise GPS data on the location of the scattering is provided to relatives, thus marking the location where the ashes were scattered. For eternity.
Conditions for dispersal at sea
Before D-Day, you must make a declaration to the town hall of the place of birth of the deceased specifying the date on which the dispersion is planned and make a declaration to the town hall of the boat's home port. On the day of the dispersion, the act of cremation is requested. In addition to scattering the ashes, it is also possible to immerse a submersible funeral urn, the material of which is biodegradable. Flower crowns are not permitted. The petals yes.
