Many families return. Not all, and not on a schedule — but after months or years, something draws them back to the coordinates where the ceremony took place, or at least to the water that holds that place.
With GPS coordinates from the ceremony, families can charter a vessel back to the exact site. There is no physical marker — the ocean is the same ocean, the coordinates a point in moving water. But the precision of the location matters to many families in a way that is hard to explain from outside: they are not returning to the sea in general, they are returning to a specific latitude and longitude that belongs to someone they loved.
Some families return on anniversaries. Some return on the first birthday after the death, or the first Father's Day, or when a child in the family reaches a milestone they know the deceased would have wanted to celebrate. The destination is the water above the coordinates, not a structure, not a plaque — just water, sky, and the knowledge of what the sea holds there.
Families who cannot or prefer not to return to the open ocean sometimes maintain a relationship with the sea from the shore at Point Loma, or from the Cabrillo National Monument overlook that faces the exact waters where San Diego ceremonies are conducted. The coordinates are not visible from shore, but the direction is known. For many families this is enough: to face the water, to know where in that water the person rests.
Several families have included the GPS coordinates in obituaries, headstone inscriptions, or estate documents — ensuring that future generations who never attended the ceremony have a record of the location. This is not common, but it is consistent with a growing understanding that a burial location, however unusual, is information worth preserving across generations.