What the signed GPS certificate from a burial at sea records, how to read its coordinates, and the quiet ways families use it afterwards.
When a ceremony aboard JADA is over and the vessel turns for home, the crew prepares one more thing for the family. It is a signed certificate recording where the release took place, and it carries the latitude and longitude of the release, the date and the name of the vessel. It is a single sheet of paper. For many families it becomes one of the most important things they carry home from the day.
A cemetery has rows, a plot number and a stone. The open Pacific has none of these. Once the vessel has passed beyond the three-nautical-mile line and the ashes have gone into the water, the surface closes over the place. It then looks like every other stretch of sea around it, with nothing to point to and nothing to find again by sight.
The coordinates solve that problem, because they are the marker. Two numbers fix one point on the surface of the earth, and anyone with a chart, a GPS unit or a phone can find that point again. In this sense the certificate does the work a headstone does on land. It records where.
Coordinates come as a pair. Latitude measures how far north or south of the equator a point lies. Longitude measures how far east or west it lies of the line that runs through Greenwich, England. Off San Diego, latitude is always north and longitude is always west.
The certificate gives the coordinates in degrees and decimal minutes, the format used on nautical charts and marine GPS units. Each degree is divided into 60 minutes, and the minutes carry a decimal point to show finer detail. A latitude therefore reads as a number of degrees, then a number of minutes with a decimal, then the letter N. Longitude follows the same pattern and ends in W.
One minute of latitude is very close to one nautical mile. A few thousandths of a minute comes to a few yards, which is the level of detail the certificate records.
Some apps and websites show coordinates in decimal degrees, which is a single number with several decimal places, or in degrees, minutes and seconds. These are different ways of writing the same point. Most map apps will accept degrees and decimal minutes if they are typed carefully with the N and the W, and free converters will change one format into another. If a pin lands somewhere unexpected, check the longitude first. A missing W, or a missing minus sign in decimal form, puts the point on the far side of the world.
Some families enter the coordinates into a phone map on the drive home or that same evening. The pin appears in open water off Point Loma. Zooming out shows the point against the coastline, the peninsula and the entrance to the bay, which helps the place feel real. Some families save the pin as a favorite place on the phone so it is always close at hand.
The signed original is worth keeping somewhere safe, in a folder with other family papers. A copy can then be framed and set beside a photograph, or kept on a shelf near where the urn once stood. A scan stored in more than one place guards against loss.
The coordinates can appear in an obituary, a printed program or an online memorial page, often as a single closing line that gives the date and the point at sea. Relatives who could not be aboard then know exactly where the release took place. There is more on wording in Writing an Obituary That Mentions a Burial at Sea.
Because the point is fixed in numbers, a family can go back to it. A captain given the coordinates can navigate to the same place on the water, whether on the first anniversary, a birthday or another day that matters to the family. Some families bring flowers to lay on the water, and the rule there is the same as on the day of the ceremony: biodegradable materials only, no wire and no plastic. Returning to the Sea: Visiting the Coordinates Later and The First Anniversary After a Burial at Sea cover this in more detail.
The certificate also belongs with a family's lasting records, beside wills and other papers, so that grandchildren and later generations can find the place. Estate Planning: Why Recording the Burial Location Matters explains why that record is worth keeping.
The certificate is a family keepsake, and the numbers on it also go into an official record. Under the EPA general permit for burial at sea, 40 CFR 229.1, anyone conducting a burial at sea must notify the EPA within 30 days afterwards using the EPA burial at sea reporting form, which is online. The notice records the date, the vessel, the coordinates and the name of the deceased. The point on the family's certificate and the point in the federal record are the same. The EPA burial at sea page describes the requirement, and The EPA Burial at Sea Report, Explained walks through the form.
There is a separate state step. California Health and Safety Code section 7117 requires the permit for disposition to be filed with the county after a scattering at sea. Families bring the permit to the marina on the day, and Burials at Sea San Diego records it with San Diego County vital records on the family's behalf.
Nothing about the certificate is complicated. It records one place, one date and one vessel. On an ocean with no markers, that record lets a family say exactly where someone they love was returned to the sea, and find the way back there.
Rules on burial at sea can change, so we ask families to check the current requirements with the sources named here: the EPA burial at sea page, California Health and Safety Code section 7117 and the San Diego County Vital Records office. Our crew is glad to walk you through each step, explain the certificate and answer questions before you reserve a date.