I was born and raised in the high desert of Nevada, the Great Basin, where water goes to die. The true meaning of ‘Lost at Sea’ escaped me in my youth.
After high school I spent time as a cadet at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, making an Atlantic cruise on the barque Eagle. After college I was commissioned a naval officer, making two cruises on the U.S.S Kitty Hawk, flying F-4 Phantoms. Those cruises included time spent in the Pacific, the Indian Ocean, and the Sea of Japan. I grew to love and respect the ocean during those years.
Memorials to those lost at sea dot the coasts of all the oceans of the world. Whether simple or grand, these memorials honor souls lost to war, to civilian shipping accidents, to airplane crashes, to commercial fishing and recreational boating and scientific research. All these memorials share one common trait – to celebrate the lives of people who died unexpectedly and have no final resting place in solid ground. Each of these memorials seems to echo the poignant words of Pericles:
Each for his own memorial
Earned praise that will never die
And with it
The grandest of all sepulchres
Not that in which
His mortal bones are laid
But a home
In the minds of men
This site is dedicated to all those souls remembered on Lost at Sea Memorials,
wherever they may be…
Dan Jenkins
Santa Rosa, CA