Yes, anybody can be buried at sea. Why people pick the ocean as their final resting place

LOS ANGELES -- Years before her death last summer at the age of 85, Lois Woodburn cornered a mortician at a party to ask if she could be buried in the ocean.

Lots of people want their cremated remains scattered in the sea, but that's not what Woodburn, a fun-loving commercial artist, had in mind.

"She said, 'My whole body in there. Just throw me in the ocean. That's what I want,'" said her daughter, Teresa Stremcha.

The mortician explained that a full body burial at sea is a bit more complicated than simply heaving a corpse overboard. But it is possible, and legal, as long as certain protocols are followed.

As Woodburn's health declined, Stremcha asked her mother again and again if she wanted a sea burial, or if she would prefer a more traditional burial at a cemetery in Inglewood.

Woodburn never wavered. She loved the ocean and didn't want to be stuck in the ground. When her time came, Stremcha said, she wanted to be buried in her favorite black bathing suit.

"That was my grandma," said Stremcha's son, Daniel Reffner. "She was always dressing