Before my wife's Uncle Doug died, he stipulated that he wanted his ashes to be spread on Lake Tekapo, one of the Southern Lakes (and currently down to the bones in terms of water because of a dry summer and high electricity demand).
So a bunch of friends and relatives turned up at the boat launching ramp at the south end of the lake on the appointed day, and we all piled into a launch owned by one of his sons and headed off out into the middle of the lake to do the deed. To cut a short story shorter, it was windy. Very strong, very steady katabatic winds coming down off the Southern Alps. Not an uncommon phenomenon. The norm, in fact.
I'm not sure just how much of the urn's contents (well, it was a plastic-lined brown paper bag, actually) wound up on and in the lake, but I do know that a fair amount of Uncle Doug ended up travelling back to various corners of New Zealand later that day ...
If he hadn't already been dead, Doug would have killed himself laughing. He was that kind of guy.
The family motto now runs along the lines of "Ashes to ashes, dust down the shower plug'ole!".
