Exploring a “Zombie Reef” and the Underwater Neptune Memorial
What exactly is “Day of the Dead diving”?
Were we diving with ghosts and zombies?
Well… as it turned out, a little of both.
During a weekend dive trip to Key Biscayne, my daughter Danielle and I experienced one of the most unusual dive weekends we’ve ever had — including a devastated coral reef, an unexpected medical issue, seasick divers, and a dive through a massive underwater memorial where thousands of people are laid to rest.
It wasn’t the dive trip we expected, but it was certainly unforgettable.
🌊 Planning Our Key Biscayne Dive Weekend
Danielle and I first learned about diving in the Key Biscayne area while diving off West Palm Beach earlier in the year. After hearing about it from another diver, Danielle did some research and booked us a three-day dive weekend with Divers Paradise, the only dive operation licensed to take divers into the waters of Biscayne National Park.
Our dive schedule looked perfect:
- Friday afternoon: Rainbow Reef + Neptune Memorial Reef
- Saturday afternoon: additional reef dives
- Sunday: three-tank dive before heading home to Tampa
What we didn’t know was that Friday would become what I now call our “Day of the Dead Dive.”
🪸 Location: Biscayne National Park
Just offshore from Miami lies Biscayne National Park, a massive marine ecosystem covering over 172,000 acres.
The park protects:
- Coral reefs
- Mangrove estuaries
- Shipwrecks
- Seagrass beds
It also contains one of the most unusual artificial reef projects in the world — the Neptune Memorial Reef, which we would soon discover firsthand.
🧟 First Dive: “Zombie Reef” at Rainbow Reef
We boarded the dive boat early in the afternoon and arrived at Rainbow Reef around 1:30 p.m. Danielle was my dive buddy along with a dive master and one other diver.
We dropped in and headed east into the current toward the reef structure before turning north along the reef line.
Almost immediately we noticed something was wrong.
The coral looked drastically different from the reefs we had seen earlier that summer in the Florida Keys.
Instead of vibrant color, much of the reef appeared:
- faded brown
- bleached white
- partially dead
The reef had lost much of its life and color due to the extreme summer heat wave, which caused unusually high water temperatures across Florida’s shallow reefs.
This reef sits in only about 20 feet of water, making it especially vulnerable.
It felt eerie — almost like diving through a reef graveyard.
We started calling it “Zombie Reef.”
Marine life was noticeably reduced as well. While we still saw jacks and smaller reef fish, there were no sharks, rays, or eels, which are usually common sightings.
We did see a few turtles near the surface, which was encouraging.
Still, it was heartbreaking to see such dramatic environmental damage in such a short time.
Anyone who doubts the impact of warming ocean temperatures should see the before-and-after condition of Florida reefs over the past year.
⚠️ Trouble Underwater: Danielle’s Ear Injury
As we began heading back toward the boat, our dive master performed a standard boat check at about 15 feet.
That’s when Danielle motioned that she needed to surface.
When we reached the top, she told me her eardrum had blown and she was in significant pain. She wouldn’t be able to dive again for the rest of the weekend.
The dive master deployed a surface marker buoy to signal the boat, but we had surfaced far from the vessel and had to wait for the other divers to finish before pickup.
The seas had built to about two-foot waves, so we started back-kicking toward the boat to avoid drifting farther away.
Eventually the crew threw us a buoy line that we used to pull ourselves back to the boat.
Not exactly the start to the trip we had hoped for.
By the time we got back on board, Danielle’s pain had eased somewhat, but her diving for the weekend — and possibly longer — was over.
To make matters worse, one of the other divers was laid out on the deck with severe seasickness.
It was turning into a rough day.
🪦 Dive Two: Neptune Memorial Reef
Our second dive site was Neptune Memorial Reef.
Neither Danielle nor I had heard of it before, and the dive master didn’t give much explanation — likely assuming we already knew what it was.
Since Danielle couldn’t dive, I entered the water with the dive master and the other diver.
We descended into about 40 feet of water with roughly 40–50 feet of visibility and began swimming toward a large structure in the distance.
At first glance it looked like an artificial reef with arches and pillars.
Then I started noticing something unusual.
⚓ An Underwater Cemetery
As we explored the site, it became clear this was something very different.
The reef consisted of:
- Large arches and columns
- Sculptures of sea turtles and marine life
- Stone plaques with names and inscriptions
We were swimming through an underwater cemetery.
The Neptune Memorial Reef is a memorial site where cremated remains are mixed with concrete and cast into reef structures. Each piece includes a plaque with the person’s name and message — similar to a traditional headstone.
Some memorials were new and easy to read.
Others had been underwater long enough to be covered in coral growth and marine life.
One large 10-foot lion statue stood beside towering pillars nearly 15 feet tall.
Whoever commissioned that memorial must have had a substantial budget — these structures are not inexpensive.
🐟 Marine Life at Neptune Memorial Reef
Despite the somber theme, marine life had begun reclaiming the structures.
I spotted:
- a large grouper hiding behind one of the pillars
- several barracuda hovering near the upper structures
- schools of reef fish weaving through the columns
The coral here actually looked healthier than the shallow reef we had visited earlier.
That’s likely because the site sits deeper in the water column, avoiding the extreme surface temperatures that damaged Rainbow Reef.
After exploring the memorial structures, we completed our safety stop at 15 feet and surfaced — once again a fair distance from the boat, requiring another surface swim.
💡 What Is the Neptune Memorial Reef?
The Neptune Memorial Reef project began in 2014 with about ¼ acre of seafloor dedicated to the project.
Families can choose to have a loved one’s ashes mixed with concrete and formed into reef sculptures or memorial plaques. The structures are then placed on the seafloor to create habitat for marine life.
The concept behind the reef is simple:
“An underwater tribute that creates life after life.”
Instead of traditional burial space, the memorial becomes part of a living reef ecosystem.
The site currently houses thousands of memorials and is designed to eventually hold over 250,000 remains, all contributing to artificial reef growth and marine habitat.
It’s an unusual but fascinating idea.
⚓ Reflections on Our “Day of the Dead” Dive
Our first day of diving off Key Biscayne turned into something we never expected:
- A coral reef damaged by extreme ocean heat
- Divers battling seasickness
- Danielle forced to stop diving due to an ear injury
- And an exploration of a massive underwater memorial cemetery
Zombie reef.
An underwater city of the dead.
It truly felt like Day of the Dead diving.
While it wasn’t the dive experience we had envisioned, it left us with a powerful reminder of two things:
The fragility of coral ecosystems…
and the many unexpected stories waiting beneath the surface.
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