Guys, it is aqua Shella season. If you don't know what aqua Shella is, go to Aquashella.com and you'll find the Chicago World Premiere aquarium Festival is going on. No, this is not a promo ad for aqua Shella. Instead, it's a promo for Jim, a four flowerhorns. They will be at aquicella Chicago August 14 and 15th. If you see them, go to the booth, say hi, tell them how much you like aquarium Guys, and they'll give you 15% off anything at their booth. Anything for sale. I mean, you could try to get some other freebies. Between you and me, you probably could. But at least 15% off what's on deck to be sold. So I have some insider secrets. If you're looking for flowerhorns gars, parrots, albino, Chinese softshell turtles, xantic, fire, eels, bashir's rays, he should be bringing them along to Aquicella. Get 15% off in person. In person. Excuse me, in person at Aquicella. And for the rest of you that don't like to travel, maybe covet's, scary still, go to J Four Flowerhorns.com. Use promo code aquarium Guys at checkout to get yourself a fat 10% discount on everything else in the store. Don't wait. Get a piece of the extreme in that tank. That's all I got. Go give him some love. And while you're there, whistle at Big Rich. inappropriately. He needs it. Let's kick that bump, I guess. Welcome to the aquarium, guys. Podcast. Jimmy, I did it.

What did you do, Rob?

I finally sold my Beta rack.

You've sold your beta rack.

Gone.

Wow.

100% gone. I had people, bless them, by the way, drive all the way from the other side of South Dakota somewhere over by montana.

Oh, my life.

They drove overnight across, like, three, four states just to get here, just to.

Buy a better rack.

Right.

They wanted it, I didn't need it. And nailed in $100.

Good deal.

So now we have enough to do another podcast.

Do one more podcast with the $800. Let's spend it all right away. Let's get rid of it.

Well, I'm your host, Rob Zolson.

I'm Jim colby.

And I'm Adams char. So we have a wonderful guest, George.

There we go, man.

There we go. There's a bit of a delay, so you have to work with us. We got George on a bit of a delayed connection, but we have George Frankelon. He is the CEO of Eternal Reefs. And for those that have not heard of Eternal Reefs, of course, this whole podcast is going to cover what this amazing program is. But certainly check it out. Eternal Reefs.com. George, thanks for coming on.

My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Well, George, again, we're going to have a million questions, but just can you summarize what Eternal Reefs does for people?

Sure. Eternal Reefs works with families, and they've lost somebody, and they want to create an environmental memorial, specifically that's going to help preserve the ocean. And so they'll contact us they'll pick a project for one of our project sites. We work in 14 different project sites and they'll pick the project and the time frame that they want to do this in. And we do these as projects with multiple families to keep the cost down. The logistics for what we do is extremely expensive and therefore we get to amortize the cost over several families as opposed to one family having to pay the whole freight. Families who bring their loved ones to the site that they've chosen and we work hand in hand with them. They get to make a portion of the reef. And what we do is we make what we call a pearl. It is a piece of concrete where the cremated remains are already. They mix the cremated rains into it. We use the reef ball. And reef ball is a designed artificial reef system. It is literally the world's gold standard for artificial reef design. When they first came up with it. I'm going to back out and give you a little longer story. Reef ball was developed by a group of divers from the university of georgia who were diving in the florida keys on a regular basis. And they saw the degradation of the reefs, they decided they want to do something about it. So they had two primary questions that had to be answered. First one was whatever they designed had to be stable in the marine environment. Second piece is whether or not mother nature really wants to work with it. And mother nature is a little bit finicky. We sink ships as recreational dive sites and it takes her several years to make that cereal ready for her to grow hard corals and a lot of the soft sponges. Reef ball is designed with its round, it's hollow and it's vented. If you can envision a whiffle ball that's been cut in half, that's pretty much what a reef ball looks like. 80% of the weight is in the lower 40% of the ball itself. So it's stable in the marine environment. It's got holes in it. So storm energy when it builds up, dissipates around, through and over. The reef ball never going to tell you mother nature can't do something. I would tell you that if she moves one of these reef balls probably have much bigger problems on land than we do in the ocean. So we use the reef ball as our design material. It's used in more than 70 countries and it's used for everything from shoreline mitigation to oyster bed restoration, to mangrove development to fish habitat. And we design ours to be part of recreational fishing and diving reefs. So we put ourselves into the fish habitat area, if you would families get to make this piece of the reef. We bring a precast reef ball with us and that gets inserted into the bottom of the reef and gets concreted into place. We also put fresh concrete on the top of the reef ball. This is where families get to personalize the reef. So they'll put handprints in there. They'll bring nontoxic materials like coins that the family travel to or military metals, and they decorate the top. Fishing lures are a big thing at the time they're done, two things have occurred. One is a lot of us can look at the top of the understanding who that person was in real life. More importantly, when this family leaves, don't go home. And they start talking about, we went to Florida and buried Grandma, they say is, you won't believe what we just did in Florida. When they get to see the amount of growth and life that these reefs support becomes a no brainer. The best part from our standpoint is they take ownership of the marine environment at a level they never have before. So now when a cruise ship goes around somewhere or somebody dumps oil, these families, to be on a subconscious level, will be thinking in terms of that could have been where mom is at so long term, certainly enhancing the marine environment. And we are creating some memorialization. Memorialization is changing in this country right now. We are going to what we call green burial. Most green things, there are shades of green involved in this. We work closely with an organization called the Green Burial Council. They certify environmentally safe cemeteries and they specialize in conservation cemeteries where there's no headstones. It's an ecologically important piece of land that's being preserved through the use of memorialization. We refer to ourselves as the surf and turf of the natural burial movement. What they're trying to do to preserve land is largely what we're trying to do to preserve the ocean.

So if I may, George, it's a lot to take in. So you guys make reefs. You use the cremated ashes of a deceased loved one. There's a full ceremony to customize the you described, and I'm on your website looking at these devices, it literally does look like a whiffle ball cut in half, a large whistleball and you create a reef to memorialize a loved one instead of just a traditional gravestone. I think that's number one. Fantastic. But I want to know a little bit more about, number one, how did this company start? And two, how did you get put in this position? What's the background? And were you the one with the light bulb idea?

I wish I was. I was in an entirely different business, and one of the divers from the University of Georgia was working with me in that business. And I had known vaguely that he had been involved in this reef project when he was in college, but had never really thought a great deal about it. He had promised his father in law that when his father passed away, he would include his remains in one of the reefs. His father in law knew he was going to be cremated and so what his father in law said was, he'd much rather be in the ocean with all that life and activity going on around him than in a field with a bunch of old dead people.

I mean, his father in law makes sense.

Makes a lot of sense.

It really does. And so when he passed away, don came in and told me he needed time off to go do this special reef project with his father in law's family. My mother's life was winding down. My brother had just been diagnosed as terminal. My mother was going to be the last person in our family cemetery plot. It would be filled. Neither my brother nor myself had any interest in being buried. We both planned on being cremated, and we had no interest in going to the family cemetery plot. He lived in Houston, I lived in Atlanta at the time, and it just wasn't in the cards for us instant. Don said what he was doing with his father in law's remains made all the sense in the world to me. I said, look, you obviously can have the time off, but when you come back, I want to sit down and talk about this from a much broader perspective. That was really where Eternal Reefs kind of started from.

Wonderful. It literally came from someone that had their last wishes of this, and now that's a great idea. And now we've turned this into a project that other people can participate in as well.

Don'S wife summed it up best. I think what she said was, it's not so much that he's gone. It's more like, look what he's doing now.

He's transferred.

It was just a great line.

He got a job.

I feel like that should be everybody's goal. I'm 30 now. I'm not the oldest book page in the book, but shut up. I've been literally talked to by my employment agencies and whatnot in the past, like, oh, what is your wishes for retirement? Do you have your will done? And they give you all this whole packet as you start a new job. I'm like, wow, this is going pretty deep for just getting a new job. And you have to answer these questions. It's like, how do you explain it? You're in high school, right? And you're going to career day, and you see that there's farmers, plumbers, doctors, and then you get the one guy that had the idea of shooting a chicken out of a cannon, and everybody wants that. I feel like that should be in the packet. Here's a pine box, here's just traditional cremation. And here's this really sick, awesome reef idea. And you can use the line of, what are you doing now? That's just the coolest one in the whole collection. I don't understand why that wasn't in my appointment pamphlet. This is better than the haunted forest idea. whoa. What's the haunted forest forest idea? Adam, that's where they like, take your ashes and then put you in a pod where you can grow trees. And then they put a little plaque saying that you are now this tree. And I'd rather be a reef than a tree because that's how you get hunted for us. That is fair.

You bring that up. Adam, one of my former workmates, died unexpectedly, and we're in Minnesota, and he loved to go out to montana hunting. And what his wife did is after he was cremated, they took his ashes, they put it in his saddlebag of his horse, and his hunting pals took him up. She didn't go long, but the hunting pals took him up to the mountains and they hung his ashes in the saddlebag, up in a tree with a note on it saying what they had done and to leave it alone. And I always thought that was pretty cool. And that was one of his favorite places to go, was hunting elk up in montana. So johnny's up there right now enjoying himself. And I tell you what, I could see myself here in the bottom of the ocean watching the fish swim by.

I mean, no doubt. Okay, so I have clearly a million questions. This can go on a lot of different things, and I feel like you go over these questions with people during their first inquiry on your website, you message in, hey, how can I do this? How much does it cost? Stuff like that. But when did you start working at at this career?

I literally started I sold my other business in 1999 and started working on the eternal reef concept right then, just dedicated to it.

So did you like marine life in any way before that?

Absolutely. First off, I was in the Coast Guard and I worked in New York Harbor a good bit. I understood value as soon as I heard what this was. And my sense was that this was going to be something that at some point in time would become a mainstream memorial. My skill set, quite honestly, is I build delivery systems. I'm not much of a salesman. I don't know.

I'm sold already.

Logistically, it took a long time to get all these pieces in place. Everything that we do is permitted, and at different points in time, the permit can be handled by as many as 26 different federal, state, and local agencies. We have to report everything we do before we do it. We have to report everything we've done after we do it. So it's a heavily regulated process.

Why is that so regulated? What's the regulation needed? Like, I can't remember the last time. Again, I haven't researched, like, a land plot because I never planned to be buried. But I can't imagine normal, traditional cemetery burial would be that regulated.

Well, on the front end it is, but once the cemetery is set up, it becomes a very straightforward process. But there are a fair number of regulations for cemeteries.

Is that like the same for reefs? You you have aquatic cemetery, and once it's been established, it's a lot easier.

And we stay away from the term cemetery when we talk about this. Right. These are the reef systems and public reefs that were built with private money. Everybody gets to use them and enjoy them. Sorry, I forgot your question. I'm getting good at that.

This whole thing of like a bunch of regulations around this just blows my mind. I don't think there's a ton stopping one person to get buried in a certain location. There might be a couple form.

There is. And there's legitimate justification for many of the regulations. I won't tell you all of them, sure, but certainly many of them. And what happened was, back in the 70s, we started developing artificial reefs for the very first time on a regular basis. And at that time, nobody really understood a lot of what would happen. So we used tires. And there are tire reefs off of Miami and Fort lauderdale. They've got 3 million tires on them, and they've all broken up and they're scattered all over the ocean floor. Same thing is true off of North Carolina. And so these tire, the ones in Miami and Fort lauderdale, they are now hiring the Navy seals to dive down and recover tires. Then they're going to go to private contractors, but they're using the Navy seals as a training mission. Used to use car bodies. They used to use washing machines, and people would just take these things out and dump them anywhere. Now, reefs are designed for specific purposes. There may be a secret reef for juvenile fish that never gets published. There are recreational reefs like the ones that we work on. There are oyster reefs. There's all different kinds of reefs. And there are regulations to check those different types of reefs from other types of utilization or misuse. So I'm okay with the fact that we are regulated. Like I said, some of the regulations are a bit more onerous than others, is what it is. We try to get the Army Corps Guard is god when it comes to issuing these permits. They're involved in every single one of them. And we try to get them to adjust some of their requirements. And from time to time, we're successful. I'm okay with the regulation. Other reef builders may have a different opinion.

So again, the amount of garbage that you've been talking about using tires, using washing machines, what have been over time like reliable artificial reefs since it only started in 1970, you said that whistleballs cut in half or the gold standard of how they do it now. But there must have been something in between them that are still considered viable reefs.

There are actually, most of them were developed in the 90s after Reef Ball Foundation came out and did its first demonstration projects. Then there were a lot of I can do this too kind of a thing. Our problem, both from a reef builder standpoint and from a memorialization standpoint, is everybody thinks they can go down to Home depot and buy a box of concrete and I are a reef builder. And there is so much more to this that people fail to see. We've had any number of people try to be our competitors and never understood that. We look at this as a reef building program, not so much as part of the funeral industry use memorialization as the tool that we get to build these reefs for or buy. So regulation side is fine with me to a certain point. And again, these regulations are designed to keep pirates out of the process, if you will. People still go out in the middle of the night and drop something and have their own private fishing hole. Now, there are regulations that should be followed.

Well, I'm going to play a million questions when I get to mine. But Adam, Jimmy, you guys got to have something. I'm just seeing jimmy's head explode here.

Well, I've just always seen like, people will go up to the mountains and release the ashes and stuff, or they've done it in Times Square and different things and gotten in trouble. What kind of regulations are there? Can a person just go out to sea and throw the ashes in the ocean legally? Can you do that?

No. The Clean Water act was passed back in the 1970s. It included specific constructions with regards to cremated remains and the use of waterways collectively. And what they did back then, first off, we probably had about three or 4% cremation rate, maybe a little bit higher. So nobody really knew cremated remains would do to the environment. So in the law, they stipulated that to scatter ashes, you must be a minimum 3 miles from the nearest shoreline. At that point, you can scatter the ashes. So in theory, everybody goes 3 miles offshore in the gulf, it's 9 miles. You go into international waters, and that's where you can release the ashes. Now, you were talking about Times Square and your friend who scattered up montana. Scattering of ashes on land is also very tightly controlled, and that is if it's public land, in most cases, you need to talk to, I would say the recreational administration. They may issue you a permit to do it, they may not. We tell people, and I will deny forcefully, if this goes any much further, that is forgive this beach permission sometimes. So with your friend up in montana, I'm going to assume just for the sake of this conversation, that that was private land. You should have gone to the landowner and asked for permission. That's really key to the whole thing.

Well, that's just the decent thing to do. See, the only reason I know anything about legalities of this because you don't think about it right about some unique situations of this. There is a national radio show called Lexantari. It's just a bunch of gentlemen on there doing stuff for slapstick comedy. It's been going on for many years. And I remember there being bits of them going in as because there was, like, hidden microphone pranks for the radio. And they went in, they brought up a bunch of ashes and pretended to spread Grandma a metaphorical grandma inside of a grocery store. And they did this like, twice. And sure enough, the cops got called. They had city ordinances saying where you could where you can and can't spread ashes. The grocery store said that was like a humane, you know, sanitary thing to the usda. Like, it was crazy what the radio station had to go through for, like, a risk assessment. And it wasn't even real. It was just that was just them trying to get a prank, if you will, and they got in that much trouble just faking it. I can only imagine what a real ceremony would have actually led to. Permission. Permission always for those that are listening.

Exactly.

Adam, you know, a guy and the.

Other thing we tell people, by the way, with scattering ashes, and we don't mean to be condescending when we say this, but we always tell people, if you're going to scatter ashes, the first thing that you do is check the wind.

Yeah, you don't want to be breathing Grandma in.

Yeah, you don't want to wear Grandma and wash off Grandma later. That's just a common sense thing.

No, thanks.

That's what my dad always told me. Never pee into the wind.

Never pee in the wind.

Same concept.

My dad told me, never pee on an electric fence. That's also very important.

I'm glad you learned that one the hard way.

That's right, the way I am.

Adam, I know you're chomping at the bit. What, you got questions for George so far? No, I'm just listening. All right.

Listening today.

Well, hell, I'll take some questions. So now that we know that it's regulated for good purpose, what is a protected area? Because I'm trying to, like, assume I was in Florida, and we went on a fishing trolley for fun. I did with this with Jimmy, actually. It was probably the best vacation I've ever had. And it was so much fun. We got to sit on this fishing trolley. They gave us these rotten reels. You put a piece of squid on it and it was purposely set so that you have a leader to drag on the bottom of the ocean. And sometimes you catch a rock or a piece of something. Another time you catch a fish. I'm assuming they did this in a regulated fishing area where they had the legal rights to do this. What's protecting these areas from, say, a fishing trolley or someone that's looking for the deadliest catch and putting nets out? What's protecting these areas? Once you have a brief established.

Well, the first thing that happens is and you're spot on with the trawlers and the nets. These reef sites, when they're permitted, come part of the public information. And most of the we work very closely with a bunch of shrimpers up and down the coast. It will not trawl an area that there is marked reefs. They're going to lose their nets. They're going to lose their equipment. So Coast Guard and again, this is one of our regulators, they make sure that they have approved that area. They have approved the height coming off the ocean floor. That particular area, and other than those designated areas, tempers can go virtually anywhere they want. There are, from a creational fishing standpoint, virtually the entire ocean is open. There may be limitations with regards to you can't anchor in certain areas, so you have to drift fish. There may be some special management zones. This is something relatively new. It's come out probably in the last 20 years, where they are specifically putting material down to study what happens, to see which fish migrate on it, which fish will spawn on it, what type of corals or sponges will grow on it. And these areas are frequently either not published or they are published in a manner where you're not supposed to be there. So for recreational fishing, pretty much the ocean is open to you.

Now, how deep are you guys down making these coral reefs? I know you have to be down a certain depth, but I mean, you also still need to sunlight to propagate corals. And whatnot how deep are these?

We try to work anywhere between 30 and 60ft. Most of our reefs are at 45ft. We try to keep them at recreational diving levels so that if people do want to dive on them, they can go and see them. We do have some reefs that are in deeper water. The deepest we've ever worked is 96ft and the shallowest. We've done some special reefs ashore in oyster bed restoration projects. I'm sorry, once again, I forgot your question.

I was just asking how deep you guys go and how far you're offshore, things like that.

In some of the cases, we have to be in federal waters. So we are either three or 9 miles offshore. In Texas, we're 9 miles offshore. In New Jersey I'm sorry, in Maryland, we're 3 miles offshore. We also try to be at a depth where most storm energy won't build up. That's that 30, 40, 56 foot level. Most storm energy will not be very significant down there. Again, I'm not going to tell you Mother Nature can't do something, but this is part of our intended plan is to try to put these in areas where there is low energy build up or there's some level of protection from the energy build up.

More questions the materials. So again, you said that there's a lot of people assuming that they could go to the local Home depot, get a bunch of concrete, and try to pour and make their own and mix them with mom and dad. Is the material. I'm assuming it's proprietary. If not, how did you guys figure out the perfect optimal material to do these spheres?

Great question. As I said, there are two primary issues. One is stability, and the second is Mother nature's interest in working on it. These divers developed a specialized concrete formula. They bring the PH content down to almost neutral. This allows Mother Nature and what we call the ocean, this nutrient rich desert with all these microorganisms floating around looking for a place to land and burrow in and start to grow. When they come on the reef ball, other nature can put them right to work. The other thing that we do, because the concrete is PH neutral, and we texture the outer surface of the reef itself. So if you took a close look at some of the pictures, you would see that it's very, very heavily. And we do that intentionally. What we do is when we cast the reef ball itself, we open up the mold to take the reef ball out. Very first thing we do is wash that reef ball down with water. I'm sorry. The first thing we do is we put sugar water on the inside of the mold. And what the sugar water does is it retards the concrete from setting up. So when we open the mold, we hose the reef off right away. All of that concrete washes off. All the Portland washes off. It leaves a very rough textured surface. This is where the microorganisms get to burrow in and start to mature and propagate before predators have a chance to feed on them. This is why you'll see growth on these reefs as soon as within six weeks. In some cases, you'll actually see physical growth. Fish will migrate onto these as we're putting them in the water. The microorganisms that we're really looking to attract, I'll take a little bit of time. But they love working with reef balls. It's a new pallet from other nature to work with.

All right, so how are these you said the process and you went through a few steps, is they have like a ceremony where they put their belongings. As long as they are safe to put out onto the reef, within reason, they get to propagate these onto the sphere. What's the next step? Is there a ceiling that you put on it? Again, you want to keep it rough. It's already PH neutral. Is it just that it's set in the mold, or is there some more to seal those keepsakes in it?

I think it is now rather ready for Mother Nature.

Got you.

Hurl itself is concrete, so it cannot come out. All these mementos, we make sure that they're properly adhering, so they should stay at some point in time. Mother Nature is. Going to knock some of those things off. But the whole process, we call it a four day process. We do the casting on a Friday, call the Saturday the Family Fun day. They go do what they want to do in the community, and we come back and we finish up cleaning the reefs up and getting them ready for presentation. On Sunday, we have the families come back and they get to see the finished reef. You get to take rubbings of the plaque, you get to take pictures. We give them children sidewalk chalk and they can ride all over the reef. And little kids will climb inside the reef. What we hear from parents with regards to kids being involved is, this is the best way I've ever seen to introduce my child to a loss. There's no dark room, there's no whispering, there's no open hole in the ground, there's no casket, there's no body. It's an arts and crafts project. So kids get fully involved. We have them help to mix the remains. They put handprints in, and then when we have the viewing, they'll climb inside and draw all over the inside of the reef. And we make sure that we have any veterans to get their military honors presented on Sunday as part of the viewing process. On Monday, the fourth day, we'll take the reefs out on one boat and all of the families out on another boat to get to witness their loved ones reef being placed on the bottom. After all the reefs are placed on the bottom, each family is given the individual opportunity to dedicate that reef site to their loved one. Give them a small tribute made of the same concrete formula that we use for the big reefs. Give them flowers, and when they're done saying they're goodbyes, they'll drop the tribute reef over the side, and that too becomes part of the habitat. Once all the families are done, we then dedicate the reef to all the people we memorialize that day. We circle the reef down the boats horn and return to the dock.

So is it just placed and then you let Mother Nature completely take over? Or is there any type of coral fragging that people can do to begin to propagate parts of this eternal reef?

So we do not, as eternal reefs do, any other additional propagation. We don't do coral transplants, but reef balls are used worldwide for coral transplants. And there are special, we call them dimples little receivers for broken coral. And can tell you the quick story is that aruba got hit with a heavy hurricane many years ago, and it's rare for hurricanes to go that far south. They lost tons of coral called the Reef Ball Foundation. Reef Ball Foundation brought its molds over to aruba, cast a bunch of reef balls, and then local divers went out and picked up the broken pieces of coral. They then put them in nutrient cups and when tourists came, it would sell them the piece of coral. And a little bit of glue and tell them where to go and plant that coral. So they paid for the project, got the corals transplanted, and I promise you, some of those families came back. They wanted to see what had happened. In the years since they'd been there before. We have families coming back to all of our reef sites. On a regular basis, so there's an echo tourism portion. Of what we bring to the community. Again, when families see what these promote and preserve, it's just amazing.

I just applaud you. This is so well thought out. You guys have not missed a thing. I mean, I'm really impressed that it's a four day event. It's a mini vacation. Let's get rid of grandma. I'm just really, really impressed. This is very, very well thought out.

See. I'm just thinking about myself, right? I now want to somehow bribe you. Because everybody's got, like, this little retirement fund that they put in, and was it accidental dismemberment? There's a whole will now with my employment, so if I happen to be deceased at an early point, I have to now prepare this. So is there any way I could bribe you for my eternal reef? First of all, have jimmy propagated some coral on there.

You have to know that robbie is a really big guy, so we're going to need two of them. If not three. There's going to be three, probably three.

It's going to be an XL version.

Yeah, we're going to need an extra long, tall version. Yeah.

Do you have a fat reef?

You can certainly range something.

There we go.

Feed the fishes. I'm always up for a good bribe.

All right. I know we need to be respectful. Of people's loved ones, but we would not do our interviewing justice. If we didn't ask you what's some of the more bizarre requests that you've gotten. Because, again, you've done this a long time. And when it comes to people's way of remembering or memorializing their loved ones, it can get weird. We've heard a lot of stories above ground. I can only imagine what happens below water.

If you don't mind, let me take a step back.

Sure.

One of the advantages of cremation. Is that families can do multiple things. So we've had many families come and say, we're using half a dad's ashes for the reef, and we are going to scatter the other half of the ashes. At the deer stand where you always used to hunt. We've had people make diamond rings. We've had people use cremated remains in shotgun shells. Pretty much, if you can think of a place to put cremated remains, people can do something. With regards to that, I think I.

Saw one time that chichen chong wanted to do something with somebody's remains.

Is that for real? Yeah, that you're being for real.

No, it was a bit they did about smoking grandma, I think.

Wow. Go cheat.

And Chong chief richard snorted his father that's right.

I do remember that.

You're kidding me.

No.

Do I have to Google this stuff, or you guys just pick?

It is absolutely true.

There was a woman in Australia who had her husband's cremated remains injected into her silicone breasts.

Really? That would probably bother her second husband, I'm guessing.

I don't know. That's a lot. I feel like someday, Jimmy, you and I just need to Google a list of things that people have done with.

Their remaining I'm just wondering, would there be a problem? Like, if you were, let's say, somebody's ex wife, you tied her to the.

Reef.

She wasn't really cremated, and you just found a rope around a leg.

That's a Chicago thing in another era.

It's not for me. It's not about my ex wife. It is, but we did our first.

Project in New Jersey written up on the front page of The New York Times at night. aleno's monologue was just read in the paper that they're burying all these people off the coast of New Jersey in concrete. So new about that.

There's nothing new about that.

Well, I'm glad Jay leno gave you some good press there.

That's good.

He did. We appreciate it.

What is, again, some of the more unique requests that you can share with us?

We have one of our very first families. Woman memorialized her first husband. Her second husband. Her second husband's. First wife in the same reef.

Wow.

Was her name? The Black Widow.

Questions about that one, because that seems a little odd. I don't know. That does seem like a New Jersey thing.

These were her four people who grew up from kindergarten.

Okay.

And when each one of their respective spouses passed away, these two got married. And their agreement was whoever passed away first, the survivor would do this with their remains. Not necessarily an eternal reef, but do something where all three of them would be together. And the goal for her, when her time comes would be to join them and she is still with us.

I'm not creeped out. I guess. That's not the word.

I'm the black widow.

I feel like it's not my place to comment, but that would be an interesting concept. I'm just trying to put myself in some of my friends shoes.

Like, imagine nobody wants to be bearded with you. You're on your own.

No, I'm just imagining, like, all the jokes you put about your ex wife, like that happening.

They're not jokes.

They're not jokes?

No, they're not jokes.

Okay. What else would you have? Because I feel like that's crazy, but still pretty tame.

When I first started this, I was doing Google searches for the same reason you were just talking about. I wanted to find out what people were thinking and what they were doing, what to expect. I found a website to this day. I do not know if it was tongue in cheek or it was for real. The reason why I say that was it was another Australian website and there's a possibility it could have been for real. What they were planning was cryogenicizing the body, putting salt blocks on the ankles and taking it out to the Great Barrier Reef and dropping it over the side, as we called it, a shark circle. The idea would be as it started to thaw, the fish would freeze, feed on it. I promise you found the website. And to this day, I do not know if it was for real or if it was tongue in cheek.

I feel like human. Charlie. I feel like that would be like inciting, like sharks to feast on humans. I don't know. I feel like there's an ethical right back to me right there.

Right back to my ex wife question. Right there. Okay.

Wow.

That's crazy.

Go ahead, George.

Somebody came to see me about doing something similar and they left their business plan with me. And their business plan. You talked about chum. Their business plan was they would take a body, it would pop it up, put it into chum bag and try to draw the apex predators and videotape the apex predator being on the chum. And this is for real. I have the business plan.

And they're from Jersey.

I'm not going to lie. All the loved ones would never forget seeing a 14 foot great white. But I don't feel like that's like a way to memorialize someone.

If we did, you, Robbie shamu would come in.

Right.

We'd have to have something big.

I'd have the whole telecom that's right.

We'd have to have something great white.

That they found that megalodon car carried ons might be alive. Are you serious? World's largest shark.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Really?

They probably saw shot Robbie there.

That would be something that would be fitting to chummy out there for. If I could discover a new species, that be a way to go right there. Well, okay. Adam.

This one felt in a quick hurry, didn't it?

I'm just trying to really wrap my.

Head around it was so beautiful for a minute there.

Maybe I'm just not ready to write up that will. You know, Jimmy, I just got to figure this out.

We're all going to die. So you got to make a decision or else you're going to have people like myself making the decision what to do with your body and I really don't care. So you probably don't want me making that decision.

I'll just make sure to leave you my TV.

That's right.

I will tell you guys that one of the biggest problems we have on the memorialization side is that families have not sat down and talked about what their final wishes are. And so a lot of times you've got two people thinking the best and wanting to do the best. Have two different opinions as to what dad wanted. So I urge everybody to sit down with your family and have the discussion. Talk about what you want done when you can no longer advocate for yourself, put it in writing. There is a website called Conversation Project, and it is a website that is designed to give families the tools so they can have this discussion. But it literally is the greatest gift you can give your family and yourself. The last thing you wanted, Jim, figuring out where you're going.

No kidding. Especially with my wife has been a nurse for years, and there's so many families that especially around here, a lot of large families. We're five of the kids say mom wanted to be unplugged, and the other three are going, no way, don't do it. And it's so much easier. Like, when my mom passed, I knew exactly what her wishes were. My brother knew exactly what her wishes were. And that decision was not left up to us. And that gave us great peace. Great peace.

The terry shiabo. A lot of people have forgotten Terry Shiabo case here in Florida. This is a woman who has kept on life support through court action for, I guess, 15 years. I don't recall how long. Again, my point being this and that is one thing we have learned is nobody is guaranteed tomorrow. So this is a very important conversation to have, regardless of what your age is. We have done memorials for infants. We've done memorials for people that are over 100 years old. As you just said, Jim, this is a gift. It really is. And it's an important gift, and it starts when you can no longer speak for yourself.

So I have a couple of questions from the audience. I got one. What is the difference between this project for Eternal Reefs and the granada underwater reef gallery? Are these kind of headstones underwater? Are they dividable for family members to visit dive?

I'm not familiar with the granada Project.

So I apparently I tried to Google it myself, and it looks like and I'm paraphrasing here, it looks like it is an aquarium gallery that might be housing something. Not real certain. I almost feel like that was a project where people donated money and they want to be memorialized not necessarily by their ashes, but by someone's charitable donation, is what it looks like.

Sure. They're seeing a lot of underwater artwork starting to develop now. There are a couple of artists jason detailer from England has done a lot of projects. One of them is off a cancun. Another one is in the bahamas. But these are statues, and a lot of people have donated money, have their name on the statute as well. Going back to the question, all of our reef sites are divable, and that's part of our intention.

Now, is there some program you work with the locals to facilitate those dives?

We can when families call us. We've got local contacts that we can set them up with. We don't really get involved in that but we have referral.

Wonderful.

So I don't like cold water. Can you put me somewhere where the water is warm? Seriously?

I'm glad you asked.

I bet you other people have asked, haven't they?

But I will tell you what we hear all the time. I'm from Minnesota. All I care about is I want to be someplace where the water is warm.

Absolutely.

I had enough cold for my whole life. And what they also say is this way my family has a reason to go someplace warm for a vacation. So question. You raised east. We get it all the time. Just as long as the water is warm, I don't care which project I'm in.

Yeah, that totally works. Ore else you could put me at walt Disney World because my kids love going to walt Disney world.

There you go.

And you can bear me under a bush somewhere.

Reef ball actually built the walt Disney snorkeling Reef on the walt Disney Island for the Cruise line. They're using reef balls there.

Wonderful.

Maybe you could put me in the living seas so when people are eating they can see me inside the aquarium there.

No, you just want to be put like you want to be ground into Red rock stadium. No, I wish you want so you could be there when every concert happens. That's what you want, Jim?

Yeah. Either that or I want to be next to a restaurant where I could eat.

I'm just saying if you could put me at a waffle house, that's the way to go.

That's right.

Actually I have a waffle house.

I'm just going to throw you out. Parking lot of dead.

Good thing you're not too high there, right?

Yeah. We don't have waffle houses in Minnesota so we look forward to them.

Yeah, we have to go down to south.

The question was that we had a message in is a lot of people that get cremated. I think in my opinion a weird tradition is that they keep grandma or grandpa in an urn in their house and you see like meet the fockers or other movies that the worst thing will happen. Grandma will tip over and they get dumped on someone or just it's supposed to be like an incredibly awkward moment when something like that happens.

It's great comedy is what it's called.

Is there any facilitation that you guys have had in making an aquarium reef for someone so they can have grandma on in and earn in the home?

The answer is we're doing that right now. Somebody who is a home aquariumist has asked us to include cremated remains in one of our small tribute reefs, which is what we are going to do and done that two or three times in the past hadn't been frequently requested, but we're perfectly prepared to do it when families want it done.

I think another great idea and I'm just going to throw this out there and I'm not trying to be funny.

Hey, this is a free idea. Just let him know so he has rights.

Yeah, you have rights.

You can do wonderful. You're giving him permission.

I mean, how about you see some of these beautiful on the patios of all these different home shows, these big cement pizza ovens or a big cement barbecue. Mix me in a big cement barbecue thing and at least I'm around the family and I get to see what they're eating.

I feel like that's a whole like, again, I'm just trying to help cleanliness thing. I don't want you baked into my pie, if you know what I mean.

Shut up.

I appreciate the thought, but that's probably something you want to run by weber.

Right now the guys at weber are going, hey, I got a great idea.

I love this guy. We got to keep him on the podcast more often. Oh, that's great.

I'm selling that to weber.

I see.

I was going to give it to you, George, but I'm going to sell it to weber.

There you go.

Perfect. Fine with it.

Weber grills. Let's see. I got a couple more. How big are the balls?

Excuse me? Smallest. Smallest one we use for memorialization and we're done with it, weighs £750.

Wow.

Largest one that we use weighs about £3500.

Now this is the traditional balls that you have for the reefs. I'm assuming when they do this aquarium thing, it's more custom and it's a one off.

It is. And we use our small trip, we can only use a small portion of the remains.

Right.

So they'll send that to us and we'll create the tribute reef with the remains in it.

So I can't remember if you said pounds or feet because we have both questions here listed. What is it that dimension wise, height and width and what is the poundage?

The poundage range is, as I said, from 750 up to 3500. The base of the reef, the small reef, is 3ft in diameter and 2ft high. Middle size reef that we use, which weighs about £1500, is 4ft at the base and 3ft high. And the large reef that we use, that's £3500, is 6ft at the base and 5ft high.

All right, next question by this. And guys, this is a really unique show with a lot of great questions from you guys. If you ever want to join the debauchery, join us, go to aquariumgyspodcast.com. On the bottom of the website you'll find our link to discord. It's how we do these chats live. We try to do mondays around 07:00 when we can central time and you can ask questions live as well. Next question is you mentioned before that these again spheres, bio balls, half a whistleballs'are, PH, neutral when you mix them. How does that change when human remains are added to the substance that you make it, would that just create more nutrients for whatever is trying to grow onto it? Or do you still aim for after human ashes have been added as something still more PH neutral.

We use the same concrete formula for the pearls that we use for the reef ball. So the concrete is PH neutral. The difference is in place of the sand in the pearl, we use the cremated remains. It replaces the sand. So it's still the same design, it's still the same concrete. What I will tell you is there's a mistaken thought that cremated remains have some nutrient value, there's some calcium that's left behind. That is the degree of contribution that cremated remains make to any of these projects.

Well, let's get to the big questions then. What is this? What does it cost? Like talk brass tax of like what I need to save up because I'm trying to paint in my mind what they told me funerals were on and we've all had loved ones and we had to plan funerals. What was the last minimum one? I think my uncle we had to bury and his just for a simple funeral was $25,000. So what, what would something like this cost?

We have two different programs. One is the attendant program, the other is the Unattended program. There's a little bit of price differentiation, but keep in mind that we are an approved 501 charitable organization. So whoever pays the reef actually gets a tax deduction. The attended reef, the small one, which is we call the aquarius is $3,995. The middle size one that we call the novelist is $4,995. And the large one that we call the mariner is $7,495. You would need to if it's Unattended, you take $1,000 off each of those prices.

So very affordable.

So again, just to reclarify, for people attended versus Unattended, this is just for us showing up to a ceremony versus no ceremony or is there anything else? Like people check on the reefs to see how they're growing. What is exactly the attendance that you're speaking of?

The attendance is the participation, the four day process. So if they come to participate, then they'll pay the higher price.

Got you.

All they're doing is sending us the cremated remains and want us to handle it and they get the unattended price.

So for an extra thousand dollars, you guys can take the family out on the boat and watch it being lowered down into the sea. That's very affordable, honestly, because I buried both my parents in the last 1012 years and stuff. And like Rob said, I mean, it's very expensive. Earlier we're talking about my friend Johnny who passed away, whose remains are over in Montana. They rented, rented a casket and it cost him fifteen hundred dollars to rent the casket for the day. And then they cremated him and put his ashes in a canister and then put that in a saddle bag and took that out to western North Dakota or western montana. So, I mean, just renting a goddamn casket that's been used from other people before was $1,500 is ridiculous.

Just before COVID started actually, it was just when COVID was starting at the very peak my wife unfortunately lost her father, and we drove to their side of North Dakota towards the montana border and tried to arrange affairs, take care of his apartment. It was a rough time and just seeing we had to make sure he got processed at the local, what do they call those funeral homes. And they were putting everything in front of us to figure out how we need to take care of stuff. And he had money put away for this. But just looking at the coffin, prices were anywhere from starting at like $3,500. Literally. I think the most expensive one they had listed was 50k.

Right.

But again, that's like if you're a celebrity or something. So let's go average, what, 810k? That's insane. I mean, you'd literally buy a running car for the sake of comfortable decorative box that you'd be buried in.

And keep in mind that you're going to see that box for about an hour.

Right? Well, I mean, three if you're catholic.

Got it.

At least three if you're catholic. Yeah. When my dad passed away, they were trying to sell us the header, and I'm going, what the heck's a header? Well, you know what? When the casket lid is open, then they could put like, a picture of a John deere tractor or a hunting scene, and it's basically just kind of a silk screen on a pad that they put up there, which kind of reflects the life of that person. So it may be, like I said, a guy at a fishing boat or something, and those were $300. And the people that took care of my dad's funeral, very small town in North Dakota and stuff, so they start telling us about it, and he goes, yeah, it's only $300 and stuff. And we just kind of looked at him and he goes, and I'm just going to throw that in. I said, good, because I'm not giving you $300 for a picture of a tractor.

That's damn decent of them.

Yeah, thanks for throwing it in. I'm sure somehow he still got it out of us somewhere, right?

So another question we got from one of our listeners I just got a message about is about pets.

Yes, that's a great question.

Right. I mean, pet memorials are getting more and more huge, especially I've seen a lot of different stuff that dogs have and cats have been really focused on. You can actually go into local pet stores and they have like a whole memorial programs that they have offered for your deer boat pets. Do you guys do anything? Is there like many ones you do or is that just kind of included in those same packages.

It's included in the same package. We don't charge anything for pets, and we've done as many as 18 pets with one person. Pets are very important. And what we tell people, because we are all either have been or are pet owners right now, what we tell people is, look, we'd be glad to work with you on your pet. We have to meet the same regulatory requirements for pets that we meet for people, and so we have to charge the same amount. And have you thought about hanging on to your pet's remains until your time comes and then we can put the two of you together in your own reef. They instantly have a new best friend. Had not even considered the possibility they could be with their pets. And from now on in, that person is going to be telling because we all talk about our pets. My time comes, Rex and I are going to be together in a reef. So we actively discourage it. We're more than happy to do it. It's a lot of money to spend on a pet memorial, but you could.

Save your money and be mixed up. We have lost our two little dogs in the last five years. And my wife just kind of said she goes when I go, I want to make sure that I'm buried with abby. And I always said I'm going to be buried with the guests. When my mom passed away, my brother put the ashes of his dog in the casket with my mom because my mom loved that dog so much and she never wanted to be alone, which is very comforting when you think about it. And so to be able to be cremated and mixed with your pets and like you said, you've got a new best friend with you, that makes total sense to me.

Well, another question that we got from the audience is where are these sites at the Gulf, Atlantic, Pacific, maybe inland?

None inland. We are off of right now. We work off of New Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and Texas. We are getting ready to add another state in the not too distant future. We're just not ready to announce it yet.

So I see here, like if you go on your website and it says underneath, I believe it's offerings, it says scheduled locations. And here's where you have that list that you just mentioned. And it shows here that you fill them by projects, which I think is really nice. Your goal is to put lake reefs in selected areas. So that again, the number one priority is building a reef and using the eternal part of it as memorials to help fund that is fantastic. So you have a list here of what you need to fill when there's viewing casting and when there's cut off dates, what projects have been fulfilled already, which I think is fantastic if you. Were to pick a location. What has the biggest need for a reef right now?

The biggest need? That's a tough question because there are different needs at different levels. I don't know that I can answer that question effectively.

No worries. We always try to leave a couple to get you stumped. It's misaccomplished.

It's probably where there's cold water, I'm guessing.

Yeah. No one wants to put any in Alaska.

Nobody wants how dare you, jimmy, no.

We do have reef balls in Alaska.

Not for me.

Not for you.

By the way, we have memorialized a person from Alaska who said the same thing. I want the water to be warm.

Damn rid.

I don't think tequila bottles would be how do we say PH neutral to bury with your reef, jimmy. So that's already in the bottle is fine.

It's tequila that you can't put down there. But we'll help you empty it.

I will, absolutely. It'll be empty when I'm going. It's going with me, I'll tell you that much.

I'll put right on your thing in memory of the tequila virus.

Yeah. And then you also can put on there I don't know if you've ever looked, George, on the international websites and stuff, but they've got all these crazy cool things that people have put on their headstones and I think it was a groucho marxist, like I told you I was sick or somebody like that.

My favorite tombstone epitaph is realized the body of solomon peas under the daisies and under the trees. He's here, only his pot he shelled out and went home to God.

That's fantastic. Well, the other thing I was thinking too, and George, you could use this if you want. When I die, you can take my ashes and you can make a new sidewalk for my ex wife so she still can walk all over me. I'm just saying we could try that.

Try to be accommodating.

That would be a wonderful thing.

Yeah. You just want to be memorializing the star of Hollywood so you can people dance on you.

Actually, I wouldn't mind being down like the Hollywood stars in the cement looking up everybody's dress as they walk by. It wouldn't be bad at all.

Guys, I'm going to have to check out pretty soon. I want to go back over one thing if I can, please.

I think we're about ready to wrap up regardless.

When he said check out, I thought he was dying for a second.

Don't do that yet. But I want to go back to the importance of the family sitting down and discussing these things.

Absolutely.

Again, what I was hearing both of you say is you both got caught in situations where didn't know 100% not fun. Yeah. And that's not the time for people to say I think this well, I think that the best of families. There's disagreements with regards to what mom or dad really wanted. My mother told my brother and my brother and I did not get along our entire lives up until the last couple of years. My mother sat down with both of us and said that she wanted to be cremated. My mother is Catholic and my brother and I both knew that that wasn't true. But my father is Jewish and he's buried in the Jewish cemetery. My mother was under the impression that she could not be buried there. I set up her final arrangements and when I spoke to the field director said, george, what do you really want? Want? I said, I want my mother buried next to my father. He said, we can do that. And I made him walk through everything he was going to do. I went out and I signed the papers and everything. I had not spoken to my brother. Called my brother up and said, bob, I want you to know this is what I've done. Very quiet on the phone. He said, mom told us she wanted to be cremated. He said, I know, but we both know that you would prefer to be with dad. He said, you're right and I'm fine with that. So I was lucky. My brother agreed with what I wanted to do. Not all the time does that work out.

Just peace of mind people, if you're out there. And why separate your family at such a terrible time when you need each other? So yeah, definitely have your stuff written down. Not just talked about, but written down. Because my mom had her stuff written down, but we knew what it was, we didn't have to look at it and stuff and it just made all the difference in the world. It just made it a peaceful ending.

Exactly.

Well, for those who are looking for.

Doing what they wanted done right, for.

Those who are looking for more resources, even on the internal Reefs.com website, there is the Conversation project. I was introduced to this when tragedy struck with us and certainly in hindsight would have rather dealt with that in this manner. So again, the Conversationproject.org don't be afraid to sit down with your family members again. If you guys are interested in eternal reefs, go to eternalrefs.com. On the website you can get your free information kit, have a conversation with george's team and they can help you establish and help the projects of building reefs and using your memorials to help support that. George, thanks so much.

Thank you so much.

Before I let you go, you have this fantastic quote on your website. If you don't have a plan, you can become a part of someone else's plan. I think that's fantastic.

Exactly.

Is there anything else we missed George?

Not a thing. We're in good shape.

Well, thank you sir. And if you got any updates or news for us, we'd love to have you on again. You've been a lot of fun.

Great, I'd love to be back.

Thanks again, George. Very insightful. I mean, we all need to discuss these things with our family. We need to know what we want to do. And here's just another option of what you can do at your end of life. And you know what? Take your pet with you. Take your favorite beer bottle or whatever you want, but just when you go, go happy.

Great. Thank you guys. You all take care.

Thanks, George.

If you guys like what you hear, go to Aquariumgistpodcast.com Bottom, the website. You can find a place to help support us. heats, lights on. But above all else, go to turtle reefs.com. Check that out. Until next week, I think. What did they say? To Ohio Fish Rescue. Stay fishy. See my people, my friends.

Here we go.

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Excuse me. Her husband's cremated remains injected into her silicone breasts.

Would you like if you see me?