Families occasionally ask whether a ceremony can be conducted in San Diego Bay — the sheltered harbor that most people picture when they think of San Diego's waterfront. The answer is no, and not only for legal reasons. Open ocean is where these ceremonies belong.
Federal EPA regulations require ash scattering at least three nautical miles from the nearest shoreline. San Diego Bay is an enclosed bay — a working harbor with commercial shipping, military installations, and sheltered inlets. Three nautical miles from shore cannot be achieved inside the bay. The ceremony requires leaving the bay, passing Point Loma, and entering the open Pacific before the minimum distance is reached.
Beyond the regulation, the open ocean is simply different from the harbor. In the bay, a vessel is surrounded by city — the skyline, the airport flight paths, cargo ships, pleasure boats, the noise of a working harbor. Three miles offshore, the city drops behind Point Loma. What remains is water, horizon, sky, and whatever the family brings to it.
The difference is felt, not just observed. Families who have attended ceremonies on both enclosed and open water consistently describe the open Pacific as uniquely suited to what the ceremony asks of a person: to be present with grief, with memory, with the enormity of loss, in a place without distraction.
The transit from harbor to ceremony site — roughly 45 minutes to an hour depending on conditions — is itself part of the ceremony. Families gather their thoughts. They share early memories. The city recedes. The water changes. By the time the yacht reaches the ceremony site, the family has already made a journey, and the release feels like the arrival it is.