Adventure-seeking B.C. couple were victims found on Nova Scotia island: relative

HALIFAX — The British Columbia couple whose remains recently washed ashore on Nova Scotia’s remote Sable Island have been identified as 70-year-old James Brett Clibbery and his 54-year-old wife, Sarah Packwood.

Clibbery’s sister, Lynda Spielman, said Tuesday the RCMP had confirmed their identities.

Spielman, a Calgary resident, said she’s heard many theories about what happened to the adventurous couple after June 11 when they left Halifax harbour in a 13-metre sailboat en route to the Azores.

Spielman declined to speculate on what went wrong during what was intended to be a 3,200-kilometre voyage to the Portuguese archipelago, and the Mounties have said they are still investigating.

On Monday, the RCMP confirmed they had identified Clibbery’s body with the help of the province’s medical examiner’s office, but they declined to release his name, citing privacy legislation.

The Mounties previously confirmed the couple’s sailboat, Theros, was reported missing on June 18. But it wasn’t until July 10 — nearly a month after they set sail — that their bodies were found in a three-metre inflatable boat on Sable Island, about 280 kilometres southeast of Halifax.

The Theros has yet to be found. A spokesperson for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, which investigates marine accidents, said the agency is still gathering information about the boat’s disappearance.

Clibbery and Packwood, who lived on B.C.’s Salt Spring Island, described themselves as adventure travellers. They routinely posted details of their trips on a YouTube channel called “Theros Sailing Adventures.”

The channel features videos showing sailing trips that extend from Canada’s west coast to the Panama Canal, and from Central America to the Maritimes. The smiling pair can often be seen on the open ocean aboard their two-masted GibSea yacht, which featured an electric motor powered by solar panels.

“Yes they were quite a pair and will be missed,” Spielman said in an email “Theros Sailing Adventures really document their lives almost from the day they met. They will always be present with their YouTube videos. Real characters.”

In a short video posted on June 8, Packwood included images of the sailboat at the yacht club in Dartmouth, N.S., across the harbour from Halifax, where she said the couple were preparing for their “Green Odyssey” adventure.

“All being well and weather permitting, the captain and I intend to set sail in the next day or two for an ocean crossing,” Packwood’s message says. “I will endeavour to document our experiences along the way and will be able to publish videos when we reach land.”

The video shows the exterior of the sleek sailboat and concludes with the message, “See you on the other side,” superimposed on a partly cloudy sky.

On June 11, Clibbery posted a video on Facebook showing him at the helm of Theros as the boat was about 15 kilometres off Nova Scotia’s south coast, heading to the southeast at 5.5 knots.

“We’re sailing away,” Clibbery says, the vast sweep of the blue North Atlantic in the background. “One big ship behind us, and that came out from Halifax behind us.”

Spielman said Packwood’s career had focused on relief 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 Railway and retired at 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 at that time lived in the U.K.

Packwood, who was working in London at the British Department for International Development, recalled her first impression of the man. “I thought Brett was so handsome, like Robert Redford,” she told the London-based Guardian newspaper in October 2020. “He was very interesting and chatty.”

The pair 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 main cabin of the boat.”

Their sailing adventures started the following year.

Clibbery told the Guardian he was impressed by his wife’s resourcefulness. “She is an amazing lady who never lets anything get in her way,” he said. “Not even months of sea sickness when we went sailing.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 23, 2024.

Michael MacDonald, The Canadian Press