The Centre for Natural Burial

By Amanda Casanova, The Daily News

GALVESTON — Robert “Whisper” Frankel loved the island. Most weekends, the Houstonian and his girlfriend made regular trips to the beach to enjoy the bubbling surf and warm Galveston waters.

When Frankel died in 2008, his girlfriend, Vera Landrum, knew he would want to be near the ocean. However, instead of releasing his ashes into the coastal wind, Landrum had his remains mixed with marine-grade concrete to form an artificial reef to be placed on the sandy Galveston ocean floor.

“This was more a celebration of Whisper’s life,” Landrum said. “I came to have closure awhile back, now this is a way to immortalize him.”

Whether it’s being launched into space, spread over a beach or mixed with shotgun shells, fireworks and paint, the options for eternal resting places have families thinking outside the box — literally.

The company Eternal Reefs, which builds the large cement reefs, is allowing families to memorialize loved ones in an eco-friendly way.

“This is part of (a) natural burial movement where people are starting to find creative and more meaningful ways to pay tribute to their loved ones,” said George Frankel, CEO of Eternal Reefs and Whisper’s brother. “In our cases, we put pets and families together, husbands and wives. When the family gets involved, the memorial gets a lot more involved and becomes a tribute they made with their own hands. It’s meant to be a positive experience.”

The first step in the process is called casting, where the remains of loved ones are blended with an environmentally safe concrete reef mixture.

Following casting, family and friends get to make handprints and write message in chalk in the damp concrete reef mixture.

A plaque is installed onto the reef ball and the day before the dedication ceremony, family and friends take photos and write final tributes on the memorial at a viewing.

Finally, a boat takes the 600 pound to 1,200 pound reef ball and family members to a placement site where the memorial will be dropped into the ocean.

Although the Texas General Land Office prohibits the creation of an underwater cemetery in state waters, the reef balls are placed about 11 nautical miles from Galveston’s shore, which is legal, said Dale Shively, the Texas Artificial Reef Program leader with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

“These particular eternal reefs are being placed at one of the program’s reef sites in federal waters where no such prohibition exists,” he said. “Concrete is a very productive material for the creation of marine habitat and meets all the guidelines established for artificial reef materials.”

The Texas Artificial Reef Program has used more than 100 reef balls, similar to those made by Eternal Reefs, to enhance underwater habitats.

In time, the reefs become a gathering place for saltwater creatures, underwater growth and eager divers. Landrum said she plans on becoming a certified scuba diver so she can visit Frankel.

“For him to be out in Galveston where we spent a lot of time, the beach and the island, we just loved it,” she said. “We just loved the idea to put him right back into nature.”

The Eternal Reefs cost between $2,500 to $6,500, depending on what size the family chooses. The deadline to order a reef to be dropped in Galveston waters is Oct. 15. The reefs will be dedicated and placed the next month.