# Buried at sea



## nigele2 (Dec 25, 2009)

As an expat living in spain do you see yourself being buried or cremated in Spain or would you imagine being shipped home (assuming you have family there)?

And does anyone have a funeral / savings plan that covers this?

Sorry to be morbid but I'm currently sorting out avoiding spanish inheritance insanity and it came to me that I had always wanted to be buried at sea but someone would have to pay for it 

On a lighter note (hope not too many have seen it before) :

Gordon Brown goes on a state visit to Israel . While he is on a tour of Jerusalem he suffers a heart attack and dies. The undertaker tells the British Ambassador,

'You can have him shipped home for £5,000,000, or you can bury him here, in the Holy Land , for just £1000 on the Mount of Olives.' 

The British diplomats go into a corner and discuss for a minute. They come back to the undertaker and tell him they want Gordon's corpse shipped home. 

The undertaker is puzzled and asks, 
'Why would you spend £5,000,000 to ship him home, when it would be wonderful to be buried here and you would spend only £1000? With the money you save you could help pay back some of the deficit, help pay for the Olympic Games or help the elderly'. 

" Sorry, says the Ambassador
, 'Long ago a man died and was buried here, and three days later he rose from the dead. We just can't take the risk .'


----------



## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

nigele2 said:


> As an expat living in spain do you see yourself being buried or cremated in Spain or would you imagine being shipped home (assuming you have family there)?
> 
> And does anyone have a funeral / savings plan that covers this?
> 
> ...


 
Shipped home???
Over my dead body!!


----------



## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

That was really funny, judging from the state of the man its already happened!!!!

As for me?? Remove any re-useable body parts, and then just stick me in a cardboard box and put up in the rubbish

Jo xxx


----------



## Guest (Apr 9, 2010)

From my own recent experience of the death of my husband there was NO way I could have let him be repatriated ( he had no arrangements made for his death) as his body would have been in the hold of the plane I was flying in. We flew together many times in the short time I knew him and I could not face even the thought. He was cremated here in Spain and I would advise anyone living here to get the whole picture of the process here asap. His ashes will be at some time in the future most likely scattered at sea, sailing was a huge part of his life and great love. The nature of his work here made it impossible to be part of any plan but I believe you can have one where you stipulate your wishes, pay your money and when the time comes one call starts the process which is all done by the funeral directors and very quickly ! Normally within 24 hours, time is allowed for relatives of foreigners to get here. 

Buried at sea ? do you mean your body or ashes ? 

Interment here is not the norm, make sure you know the time span the coffin will remain in the place you choose. It is normally a fee repayable after set amount of years. If not paid then the coffin is removed to communal graveyard. It can be difficult to then trace where it has been palced, I have heard.


----------



## nigele2 (Dec 25, 2009)

ValL said:


> Buried at sea ? do you mean your body or ashes ?


Val tx very interesting stuff. Like your man I have a sporting interest with the sea: windsurfing and diving (more the latter as age creeps on and the bones creek on )

I guess crem and then ashes spread on the rolling atlantic would be good.


----------



## Guest (Apr 9, 2010)

Is there no edit facility here ? I have made a spelling mistake I wanted to correct.


----------



## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

ValL said:


> Is there no edit facility here ? I have made a spelling mistake I wanted to correct.


Hi Val,
Sounds like you've had a rough time and time very hard decisions to make. It can't have been easy, especially in a foreign country

The edit button thingie comes up after you've made your post, but disappears after about 5 mins


----------



## nigele2 (Dec 25, 2009)

ValL said:


> Is there no edit facility here ? I have made a spelling mistake I wanted to correct.


Val there's an EDIT button but is only available for a short time after posting. It is to the left of REPLY and QUICK. On my part don't worry. If it wasn't for spall cheaker


----------



## Guest (Apr 9, 2010)

nigele2 said:


> Val tx very interesting stuff. Like your man I have a sporting interest with the sea: windsurfing and diving (more the latter as age creeps on and the bones creek on )
> 
> I guess crem and then ashes spread on the rolling atlantic would be good.


Your welcome.


----------



## Guest (Apr 9, 2010)

Pesky Wesky said:


> Hi Val,
> Sounds like you've had a rough time and time very hard decisions to make. It can't have been easy, especially in a foreign country
> Aye and it is not near finished yet. The funeral arranging was hell no other word for it. Learn spanish ! you have no clue what is happening if you cannot speak/understand the planning. I was on a different planet anyway as it was all so sudden.
> 
> ...


Ah right better double check this one then !

Thanks


----------



## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

True story.
My garden in Scotland is right on the shore and I have part of it on rocks... lots of little areas I can lay in the sun and not been seen. One sunny day I was laying there with my book and radio when I could suddenly hear bagpipes and they weren't coming from the radio... Just as I was going to stand up and look for the source I felt something hit me.. and to my horror I was covered in a greyish dust... I jumped up and saw a piper on a yacht playing as someone's ashes were being scattered onto the water. I waited until they had passed and of course ran straight up for a shower... the ash did land back in the water as my drainage goes into the loch.
I believe you have to have permission to scatter ashes on any river/sea/loch


----------



## Caz.I (Mar 21, 2009)

Ooh, creepy. I suppose though you have got to be careful when they are being scattered. I am sure that I would want to be cremated rather than buried, although of course I cant assume that I will be in Spain when it happens! I heard about the cremation after 24 hours in Spain rule, perhaps it's because of the hot weather in summer? 

I think there are several places around the world where I would want to be scattered (I do like to travel lol), although I know that would make it complicated and probably a bit expensive for my surviving relatives. And they would probably have to research laws regarding scattering of ashes in each country so maybe I have to be more practical. On the other hand, it might make an interesting holiday for them?

BTW, loved the joke Nigele.

Caz.I


----------



## jimenato (Nov 21, 2009)

ValL said:


> Buried at sea ? do you mean your body or ashes ?


Strangely I know something about this as I have officiated at two "burials at sea", once when I was commodore of a yacht club in the UK and once off Estepona.

In the UK the rules were very precise - the box for the ashes had to be made in a certain way and weighted with the correct amount of lead and so on. I seem to remember that there were rules about the location and local shipping had to be warned as well. In contrast, in Estepona we just sort of sailed out and chucked the urn over the side. 

I doubt very much that a Burial at Sea as opposed to a Disposal of Ashes would ever be allowed.


----------



## owdoggy (Jul 23, 2008)

Me & Mrs Doggy have decided that whoever kicks it first is going in the pozo 'cos aparently a dead bod or two keeps all the bio-doody thingies working properly 


Doggy


----------



## Stravinsky (Aug 12, 2007)

The whole thing of death and inheritance in Spain is frightening. Its bad enough that the funeral takes place so quickly, giving relatives in the UK next to no chance to get here to attend.

Having just suffered a rather frightening episode which I am only just beginning to realise how serious it could have been, my mind has turned to these matters, but I'm not quite sure yet what course to take. I think for both of us though cremation is the answer. Those boxes in the churchyards as Val says can run out of time if you domt keep the payments up, and then you can end up in a communal grave!!


----------



## VFR (Dec 23, 2009)

I quite like the cemetery's here, they are well kept and usually have a permanent person looking after the place (much nicer than the UK)
I asked the council here if I could reserve a niche & they said that they no longer allow this and they are now allocated in order & are for 25 years (?) and the family will have to pay again to keep the niche going for another period.

I attended a cremation in the cemetery in Carxient (?) and it was bloody abysmal ! (truly) and if it were a relative of mine I would have stopped it immediately.

If fact we do have a family plot in a Kent village church that we paid for a good many years ago, but have no desire to ever use it now. (maybe I should flog it on Ebay)


----------



## MaidenScotland (Jun 6, 2009)

playamonte said:


> I quite like the cemetery's here, they are well kept and usually have a permanent person looking after the place (much nicer than the UK)
> I asked the council here if I could reserve a niche & they said that they no longer allow this and they are now allocated in order & are for 25 years (?) and the family will have to pay again to keep the niche going for another period.
> 
> I attended a cremation in the cemetery in Carxient (?) and it was bloody abysmal ! (truly) and if it were a relative of mine I would have stopped it immediately.
> ...


----------



## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

SteveHall said:


> I have a funeral plan and when my time comes one phone call to Mapfre sets everything in motion. I will be cremated in Spain and my ashes returned to my next of kin. What happens next? Their gig and they will do whatever is easiest/best for them I hope.
> 
> I remember a few years ago being on a Ryanair plane (registered in Ireland I guess) which had a mainly Polish crew although the captain was Welsh. I was a UK citizen, living in Spain but flying from Copenhagen, (Denmark) to Madrid. Most of the passengers onboard seemed to be Swedish but the captain of their ice-hockey team was telling me he was Finnish-Latvian. Quite a mix but I guess typical of many flights. We were just flying over the French - German border when we hit a bit of turbulence. All a bit scary monster and the loud American woman across the aisle and started screaming and holding on to her Spanish-speaking husband. My life passed by me ( I should have said , "I do NOT" to the vicar) and I thought in one of those macabre moments, "I wonder where they will bury the survivors if we do crash?"


You mean they will even bother to dig them up first?


----------

