About Great Burial Reef®

The Great Burial Reef Five-Point Promise

"My team and I promise to deliver unique and memorable services to families through uncompromising compassion, respect, accessibility, responsibility, and ethics."
- Jason B. Rew, Founder, President & CEO

There are a lot of "interesting" ideas floating around out there related to burial at sea. Great Burial Reef’s® unique interpretation of burial at sea is the only idea that addresses four critical values and benefits we believe are universal to all families: our Ocean Cremation Urns™ and Family Witness Services are affordable, environmental, they can be placed in the ocean when you're ready, and they're genuinely 'cool.'

We've been helping families celebrate the lives of their loved ones for a long time now. He’s an explanation of why what we have created at Great Burial Reef® works, and how we got started.

A Unique Concept

The idea for Great Burial Reef® is the brainchild of our founder and CEO, Jason Rew. As he has recounted over the years…

“My father and grandfather were clever men, and years ago while sailing in the Gulf of Mexico they commented on how neat and original it would be to be able to buried in one of the reefs we were sailing over. My father, who was a lover of puns, thought it should be called ‘Great Burial Reef’. The idea came up again and again as we sailed together over the years.”

Research and Development

Some time later, the idea resurfaced when Jason was in college, and in 1999, he enlisted the help of our co-founder and vice president, Andrew Whitaker, to begin researching the design and ultimately the approval to construct artificial reefs for ocean burial. It took a lot of time, money, and persuasion to bring Great Burial Reef® to life – it was at the time, an unheard of proposition. But our founders’ belief that Great Burial Reef® was the ultimate and life-celebratory expression of affordable, environmentally-inspired burial at sea persevered, and over the next few years, they collaborated with marine biologists, construction experts and funeral service professionals to arrive at the precursor to the Ocean Cremation Urn™ and the concepts that today drive our unique Family Witness Services.

Personal Beginnings

In 2006, Jason’s father died unexpectedly in an automobile accident, just as we were finalizing the design of our first reef modules from which the current Ocean Cremation Urn™ evolved. The design was finalized, and the first Great Burial Reefs® were hand cast in a facility in Sarasota. Our founders were present as each of the first Great Burial Reefs® emerged from its mold.

The first Great Burial Reefs® weighed 4,000 pounds, and were placed in the Sarasota reef site in large groups by barge. The large reefs were designed to accept conventional marble cremation urns and their precious contents after they had been placed underwater; a diver would descend to the reef, gently insert the urn into a protected chamber within the reef’s structure, and then seal the reef with a concrete lid using marine grade adhesive.

“By design,” Jason comments, “my father was the first to be placed in a Great Burial Reef®, and my family was at sea with me when I personally dove down and sealed his urn inside one of the massive undersea reefs. We reflected on the simplicity and beauty of the choice, and the uniquely life-celebratory experience we had shared to honor my father’s memory. It was amazingly beautiful and like nothing anyone present had ever experienced. We knew then that the experience had to be shared with and offered to others.”

Evolution

Thus Great Burial Reef® began humbly, marketing its burial at sea services to local Gulf Coast families. One of the things we learned very quickly was that a diver taking an urn underwater to place in a fixed reef was somewhat difficult to visualize and understand, so the original 4,000 pound reef’s design gave way to the current, more portable version, the 600 pound Ocean Cremation Urn™. The design of the Ocean Cremation Urn™ allows us to present the reef to the family before it is placed in the ocean. Families can visit with the reef, inscribe farewell messages, and then travel to sea with the Ocean Cremation Urn™, participating in every step of its final journey. Watching it slowly descend to the ocean floor under the care of our experienced crew brings it all home for families, who tell us that watching that final descent is powerful and meaningful.

Almost every local family we serve invites participants from out of town, and as time has passed, word of our unique services has spread and we now market our services to families everywhere. Over the years, we have served families from nearly every state and even a few international locations, and while each family’s experience is uniquely different, they all say the same thing when we return to port: “I’m glad we did this.”

Geographic Expansion

In 2010, Great Burial Reef® began expanding to other reef sites around the state of Florida, and northward up the eastern seaboard by applying for permits for new federally-protected marine sanctuaries dedicated to Great Burial Reef® use. Now, with four locations on Florida’s Gulf Coast, four locations on Florida’s Atlantic coast, a mid-Atlantic location in Maryland and a New England location in Massachusetts, Great Burial Reef®, Great Burial Reef® intends to continue its expansion plans in 2012 and beyond… maybe to an ocean near you!

A Great Burial Reef® for Everyone

Depending on where you live and depending on your family’s finances, the 600 pound Ocean Cremation Urn™ and Family Witness Services from one of our ocean ports of call might not be appealing to you. With the addition in 2011 of the 60 pound Ocean Cremation Urn™, Great Burial Reef® is now accessible to anyone… anywhere. The 60 pounder is an exact but smaller duplicate of the 600 pound Ocean Cremation Urn™ we place in the ocean, and it is specially designed as a “do it yourself” experience for families who wish to celebrate the life of their loved one without the encumbrances of geography or the requirement to involve our dedicated staff oir others. The 60 pound urn can be shipped straight to your door or to the funeral service provider of your choosing, your loved one’s remains can be sealed inside its Care Chamber™, and you can place the urn in the location of your choosing at the time that’s right for you… privately or with anyone you please.

Looking Forward

Our founder describes our entire team’s feelings as we celebrate our years of serving families from across the country and look forward to serving the next family who chooses Great Burial Reef®.

“I wake up each morning knowing that what I have created and what my team and I continue to do every day makes a difference in the lives of families around the globe. We collectively get the same amazing feeling every time a new Ocean Cremation Urn™ is placed in the ocean and begins to attract and foster marine life – by choosing Great Burial Reef®, families are helping us actively contribute to vitally needed ocean reef restoration in a very meaningful way.”

At Great Burial Reef®, we deal with loss every day, and we know how hard it is to lose someone we love. But we start each day knowing that the family we serve today… maybe it’s your family…. has taken its first step towards closure and begun the healing process, and we’re immensely proud to facilitate the first steps of that journey.

That’s our Great Burial Reef® story.

Can we help you write yours?