Sunset in the islands of the blessed

The Sunday Paper
10/16/05 - The modern burial at sea

By Susan Kay Asher

Deep-sea diver Tim Terry used to visit the fishes and sea creatures twice a month for more than a decade until he died unexpectedly in 2003. Now he’s with them every day.

His remains were mixed inside a man-made 400-pound reef and buried 45 feet below the ocean’s surface off the coast of Florida, near Sarasota.

Terry’s family knew he wanted to be cremated, but when his sister, Becki Fisher, was searching the Internet for the right container for his ashes, she saw something that would suit him even better: an opportunity to become part of a living reef through an Atlanta-based burial reef company, Eternal Reefs, Inc.

“It brought our family closer because we knew it was something that Tim would have loved,” she says. “He’s resting in a place where he felt most at peace in his life.”

Eternal Reefs, Inc. has buried more than 350 people from around the country in 400- to 4,000-pound reef balls, which themselves become living organisms, sprouting coral and attracting other sea creatures. The balls are expected to last 500 years, and families are provided exact Global Positioning System coordinates so they can visit the “Memorial Reef” site by boat to fish or dive.

Eternal Reefs founder, Don Brawley, began diving off the Florida Keys in the late 1980s with his UGA college roommate, Todd Barber. They were concerned about the way that divers and pollutants diminish reefs. So they developed an environmentally friendly concrete formula for reef balls that would replicate the natural marine environment that supports coral and the microorganisms that live on it. In 1990, they began the Reef Ball Development Group and the Reef Ball Foundation that, so far, have placed more than 600,000 reef balls on the ocean floor, becoming the standard for coral restoration and habitat development.

VOICES FROM BEYOND:

"I can think of nothing better than having all that action going on around me all the time after I am gone—just make sure that the location has lots of red snapper and grouper."—Carleton Glen Palmer, now buried at sea in an artificial reef ball

One evening Brawley was speaking with his father-in-law, Carleton Glen Palmer, who said he’d like to be buried at sea in one of the artificial reef balls. As Carleton put it, "I can think of nothing better than having all that action going on around me all the time after I am gone—just make sure that the location has lots of red snapper and grouper." Shortly after Carleton made this request, he passed away. Brawley’s first reef burial was for his father-in-law in 1998. That reef ball is now teeming with sea life.

Brawley says Eternal Reefs invites family and friends to participate in the casting of the reef ball itself, placing their handprints and writing their names with their fingers in the wet concrete molding as tribute. In place of a headstone, a bronze plaque embedded in the concrete memorializes the dead. When the casting fully cures, in about four weeks, a site dedication ceremony is held onsite—often with an unplanned entourage of dolphins.

Terry’s sister, who lives in Gainesville along with her parents and two brothers rode on a boat one sunny, breezy July afternoon to watch Terry’s reef be placed in the water. They brought pictures of Terry—one of him with a lobster he caught—and threw flowers into the ocean where the reef ball was to be placed. Brawley read from a speech given by former President John F. Kennedy about “being tied to the ocean” and “going back from whence we came.”

The cost of a reef burial ranges from $1,000 to $5,000, which does not include the actual cremation. People may be buried in a single reef ball, or may be buried in a community reef with loved ones. Ashes are kept separately until all members to be buried have died. And, people can bury their pets in a memorial reef as part of the “Pearls are for Pets” program.

“Rather than passing an urn down to future generations, or taking space in a cemetery,” he says. “This memorial is a true living legacy.”

Terry’s family expected the ceremony to be sad, but it wasn’t.

“We felt like we were giving something back to Tim and the sea,” says Fisher. “He was happiest when he was diving. Sea life is what he loved most.”

Brawley says has buried people of all ages in Eternal Reefs, but there have been a disproportionate number of parents burying their children. Parents tell him since their children were unable to live their lives to completion, they want them surrounded by life.

“It’s not so much that people are gone,” says Brawley. “It’s more like ‘look what they’re doing now.’”