Reef cemetery a home to life in the afterlife
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — A year after Will and Daniel Payne lost their mom, and nearly two decades since their father’s death, it was time to follow their wishes for the afterlife.
As they board a boat with three generations of family, the brothers slip into flippers and de-fog their masks. Will, who became a certified scuba diver just days earlier, checks his oxygen tank and jumps into the azure waters to secure a concrete marker mixed with their ashes at a memorial reef about 3 miles out to sea.
This unusual resting place is exactly what the Paynes say their parents wanted. Buel Payne, a former Coast Guard member, and Linda Payne, who grew up on the water and loved boating, will spend their afterlife in a memorial modeled after the lost city of Atlantis, among impressive lion statues and ornate gates and pillars that encrusted with sea life.
It took nearly four years for multiple government agencies to sign off on this underwater mausoleum, which is designed to encourage a healthy ecosystem. Roughly a decade later, the Neptune Memorial Reef is home to the cremated remains of 1,500 people, and any snorkeler or scuba diver can visit.
The Paynes are the first to be memorialized in the reef ’s expansion, which opened this summer and will make room for an additional 4,000 memorials over 16 acres, about 40 feet deep. Placements start around $1,500 and can go up to $8,000, with the priciest placements for specialized shapes like sea turtles and stingrays or for prominent spots throughout the city like the lions.
With reefs struggling worldwide against coral bleaching and other threats, the memorial’s builders are providing coral a head start. The concrete structures offer a high pH level, enabling sea creatures to flourish. “We’re seeing animals here that we haven’t seen before. Ones that have been missing for a long time,” says Jim Hutslar, the reef ’s operations director and one of the founders. “We actually found a long spine sea urchin that was considered extinct in the Caribbean Sea.”
Sara Thanner, an environmental supervisor for the Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources, says an April survey showed the reef supports more than 65 different fish, shrimp and lobster and 75 other species including sponges, soft corals, and hard corals.
For people making end-oflife plans, the reef means being part of something living.
“We’re creating life after life,” Hutslar said.