Miami’s Neptune Memorial Reef is a final resting place like no other. When these people say you’ll be sleeping with the fishes, they’re not kidding. One day, the cremated remains of 250,000 souls will be tended by angel fish, guarded by moray eels, and visited by scuba divers in a scenic 16-acre city of the dead 3 miles off Key Biscayne. Neptune Memorial Reef opened at the designated artificial reef site in 2007. The design theme at the outset was the Lost City of Atlantis. There’s an entrance, archways, columns, a giant globe, lions, and statuary. Marine life — including a rare type of sea urchin — has attached itself to the structures and is thriving. Parrotfish, black beauties, and green morays are among the residents. It’s not really a cemetery or a mausoleum, but more of a tribute reef. Customers can choose from 11 types of molds with inscribed copper plaques to hold their ashes, including brain coral, seashell, starfish, turtle and stingray. The cost of a single placement, in which ashes are mixed with cement into the mold, starts at $1,999. Neptune also offers “Scatter at Sea” options for as low as $595, which includes scattering ashes in open water above the reef with a plaque placed on the reef. It’s less expensive than a traditional burial in a casket that can cost upwards of $5,000.
