Benjamin Morris Abrams

Benjamin Morris Abrams Bali, Indonesia/ Wilmington, NC - Benjamin Morris Abrams, the fabled and fearless attorney who pursued a life of beauty and adventure abroad, died at his home on Bali, Indonesia on June 1st. He was 79.

Across roughly a hundred countries, Ben blazed and sailed a trail characterized by a blithe and unrepentant disregard for convention. He was charming and infuriating. His facility for language and the law was breathtaking-as was his capacity to stretch the former and skirt the latter.

Born in Wilmington, North Carolina on October 10th, 1943 to Harold Brandeis and Myrtle Hannah Abrams, Ben spent his childhood fishing and skiing the southeastern coast. He attended New Hanover High School before earning his undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1966. After a course of study at London City College, he graduated from the New Orleans campus of Loyola University's School of Law in 1969 to become a criminal prosecutor in the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office under Janet Reno.

In the years that followed, Ben built the yacht Slow Dancer, on which he would live for nearly two decades. He practiced law in the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, New Caledonia, Thailand, and Indonesia.

But the real measure of his life lies somewhere beyond those facts. His existence verged on the mythic. At the age of 27, Ben ran arms from Bilbao, Spain to Valparaiso, Chile on a cargo ship he bought in Copenhagen. He built a discotheque called The Wow on Saipan and chased pirates off the coast of Indonesia. He played a twelve string, loved convertibles and smooth cigars, fine champagne and a good story. As for freedom, he found that on the vast ocean crossings that took him weeks from land and where he could chart his own course by the stars. Like his father before him, Ben Abrams was happiest at sea, thrilling to the wind in the rigging, squinting into the sun, and heeling hard in the deep water.

He is survived by his friend and caretaker, Megawati Rambu Anahida; his sister, Jill Abrams Gilbert; and his children: Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams, Amanda Moselle Abrams, Beauregard Abrams, Kanasta Gisele Abrams, Aaron Renne Abrams, and Kosca Abrams.

Were he to end this, Ben would say, Bon courage. He would say, God willing and if the creek don't rise. Laissez les bons temps rouler, he would say.

So let them roll.