Neptune Memorial Reef
An underwater city off Key Biscayne where the residents are cremated remains. It's beautiful and it's exactly what it sounds like.
Three miles off Key Biscayne, 40 feet below the surface, there is a city. Columns, archways, bronze lions, a welcome gate. The residents are real — their cremated remains are mixed into the concrete structures. Neptune Memorial Reef is the world's largest man-made reef and the world's largest underwater cemetery.
Dive charters from Key Biscayne and Miami Beach run regular trips. The reef is accessible to recreational divers at 40 feet. Snorkelers can see the upper structures. Neptune Society handles the memorial placements — the reef is open to the public for diving year-round.
The design is based on the lost city of Atlantis. The marine life has moved in without being asked — the reef is now genuinely alive, which is the whole point. It's one of the stranger and more moving things you can do in South Florida.