At home in the East End of Ojai, surrounded with love, Erik Mauritz Bjornstedt, 71, died Monday March 16, 2020. Born on May 29, 1948 in Long Beach, California to Arthur and Lerie Bjornstedt he moved with his family to Ojai in 1950. He had a horse and a dog and a hawk to accompany him and his boyhood friends roaming around the Valley. Erik played chess, enjoyed tennis and hiking, and drove to Ventura to surf before classes. He could play many musical instruments including piano, guitar and flute and greatly loved and explored music his whole life. He graduated from Nordhoff High School in 1970, served in the US Navy for four years based in San Diego, and attended Ventura Community College and California Institute of the Arts in Santa Clarita. He worked in land surveying and marine services.
Erik married Terry Truitt, his soul mate of 44 years, on Ojai’s Meditation Mount July 11, 1981. Together they pursued their joy of nature and life in, on and under the ocean. Erik was a scuba diver and a fisherman, and loved rowing his various dories, and also backpacking and white water river rafting. But his primary passion was as captain of his three sailboats throughout more than thirty years in California’s Channel Islands and his beloved Mexico. He could fix anything, was a popular net controller on Ham and maritime radio, and ever courageous under the challenges at sea. He lovingly mentored his own parents as new sailors out of Ventura Harbor in their later years.
For the past 16 years Erik and Terry lived in Mexico aboard their sailboat Mija, sailing the Sea of Cortez and the waters of Mexico’s Pacific Coast. Erik’s graceful and gentle nature was reflected in his beautiful blue eyes. His unwavering loyalty, innate kindness, and his easy laughter led to lasting friendships throughout his life, in the international cruising community and among the people of Mexico, his second country. He was well known as the master of the conch, which he blew in anchorages at sunset in memory of the ancestors gone before. The many wedding ceremonies he planned and performed for friends and children of friends were individual works of art; he could coax the very best from all the participants, in Spanish as well as English.
Erik was preceded in death by his mother and father Art and Lerie, his brother-in-law Stan Abrams, and his mother and father- in -law Bette and Jim Truitt. He is survived by his wife Terry in Ojai, his sister- in -law Toni Abrams in Telluride, Colorado, his brother -in- law Tom Truitt in Salisbury, Maryland, his sister Chris and brother-in -law Barry Betlock in Eagle, Idaho, his god daughters Beth Blanchette and Anya Bucket and their families, and Erik and Terry’s cousins and families, and precious friends.
Consistent with Erik’s lifelong reverence for dogs and all animals, donations in his honor may be made to the local Search Dog Foundation or other animal rescue organizations.
Arrangements are under the direction of the JOSEPH P. REARDON FUNERAL HOME & CREMATION SERVICE, Ventura.