Memorial held for local woman killed in Thailand
Dozens of people gathered at Clancy’s Pub on Sunday to celebrate the life of Shelly Bot.
The 50-year-old Penticton woman was killed Feb. 16 while snorkelling in Thailand.
“She kept my life interesting,” said Jack Williams, her commonlaw partner of eight years.
“We have memories you couldn’t print in your paper, OK?”
The two moved to Penticton from Surrey about four years ago after falling in love with the area during a weekend trip here.
“We were sitting on Okanagan Lake beach sharing a beer, and the sun was going down, and I asked her if she’d like to live here, and it took her a whole half a second to answer,” he said.
Bot, whose three children are now living with their father in the Lower Mainland, was a popular clerk at the Dollar Tree store on Skaha Lake Road.
“She loved people,” said Williams, who also described her as strongwilled and gifted in stick-fighting, a martial art in which he trained her.
“I took her to a regional martial arts tournament and she beat a guy half again her size and 20 years younger for third place in padded-weapons fighting,” he recalled.
Bot and Williams left for Thailand on Feb. 1 for a month-long holiday. She surprised him with the trip to pay him back for a Mexican vacation on which he took them four years ago.
On the day she died, they were out on a dive boat off Sairee Beach on the island of Koh Tao, when Bot was struck by a water taxi and died instantly.
“There are areas roped-off that boats aren’t supposed to go through, but the water taxis go through them anyway,” Williams said.
Bot was cremated at a Buddhist temple in Thailand, and Williams returned home with her remains last week. No former funeral service is planned.
Williams said Bot wasn’t religious, nor is he, but expects their time together hasn’t ended just yet.
“I’m of the belief that we get more than one goaround,” he explained, “and so was she, so we’ll probably meet up again.”