Burial, cremation, or full fathom five? I can see the allure of a watery grave | Philip Hoare
by Philip Hoare from on (#JKFQ)
Eighty-five-year-old twins from Brooklyn are setting off on what they say will be their final voyage. Their plan to die at sea has an undeniable romance
The endlessness of the sea offers an eternal alternative. Perhaps if we just pushed off into it, we could escape death itself - as if its amniotic waters might be a return to a universal womb. After all, the sea is where we came from in the first place. There's a definite romance to saying goodbye to the land, and setting sail for that last adventure.
Van and Carl Vollmer, 85-year-old twins from Brooklyn, certainly think so. The brothers are about to embark on the handsome 158ft, three-masted barquentine, the Peacemaker, on a round-the-world voyage in search of remote islands and sunken galleons, from the Panama Canal to the Great Barrier Reef, the Philippines, and on to the Mediterranean.
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