Individual reefs now available that will replenish systems off the Florida Keys and honor Jimmy Buffett in the area that provided inspiration for much of his music and stories
SARASOTA, Fla., March 17, 2025 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The Parrot Head Reef will be dedicated on September 1, 2025, two years after the passing of music's beloved Jimmy Buffett, a passionate ocean conservation advocate. The reef will be located in federal waters outside the sanctuary boundary off Key West, Fla, one of Jimmy's famously favorite and storied cities.
The project is a collaboration between Parrot Heads in Paradise (PHiP), a network of more than 200 social and charitable clubs around the U.S., Canada, Europe, the Caribbean and Australia, and Eternal Reefs, the Sarasota-based creative environmental memorial non-profit dedicated to placing living legacies that help preserve the marine environment for future generations. Reef Innovations and the Reef Ball Foundation, sister organizations of Eternal Reefs, are also involved.
"Our Parrot Head organization could not be more excited to get this project in the water," said Bill Brehm, national president of Parrot Heads in Paradise. "Because the Keys were such an influential part of Jimmy's music and now his legacy, this is the perfect way to honor him by helping marine conservation efforts in an area so near and dear to Jimmy's heart as well as many of our Parrot Head members."
The Parrot Head Reef will be comprised of two sizes of reef balls, ranging in size from about 600 to 1,600 pounds, and each will feature an 8-inch circular bronze plaque, custom designed by each entity which purchases the memorial. The marine area will become a dedicated space for underwater memorials featuring individual reef balls containing plaques paying homage to the original beach lover and ocean advocate.
"Over the course of more than 25 years helping families honor and memorialize their loved ones, we've learned one thing: connecting people with the ocean is extraordinarily powerful," said George Frankel, CEO of Eternal Reefs. "The Parrot Head Reef will give Jimmy Buffett fans a unique and ongoing opportunity to put their own spin on how they honor the original Parrot Head while they simultaneously participate in Jimmy's priority of ocean conservation."
A reef ball is a hollow, vented structure created from environmentally friendly, pH-neutral concrete. Because they are vented, ocean currents pass through and fish love to play in them, circling in and out. The majority of weight is at the bottom of a reef ball, so it stays where it's placed on the ocean floor. Mother Nature loves this material and begins her art project nearly immediately, adding natural marine matter to make it her own in as little as a few weeks.
The Parrot Head Reef will be located in the site permitted by Florida's Monroe County that is .25 acres square. The location, 21 miles off Key West in 46 feet of water, is outside Florida's sanctuary boundary in federal waters and will feature a dedicated space to honor Jimmy Buffett and a cause he held so dear – ocean preservation.
While anyone may purchase a memorial, pricing preference will be given to PHiP members and clubs. In the week leading up to September 1, the completed memorials will be displayed in Key West for viewing by individuals and clubs. Costs are $2,500 or $3,000 for the two sizes of reefs, each with an 8-inch custom plaque. The memorials will be on display in a Key West park-type location toward the end of August and, pending weather, the first memorials in the Parrot Head Reef will be deployed, targeting a September 1 date.
Although Eternal Reefs is an ocean memorialization non-profit that exists primarily to help families create memorials to their loved ones by mixing their cremated remains to form an Eternal Reef, there are no plans currently to incorporate any cremated remains into the reef balls being placed on the Parrot Head Reef.
For more information, please email [email protected], visit https://www.eternalreefs.com/parrot-head-reef/, or phone 888-423-7333.
About Parrot Heads in Paradise
Parrot Heads in Paradise, Inc. (PHiP) is a not-for-profit corporation, whose purpose is to assist in community and environmental concerns and provide a variety of social activities for people who are interested in the music of Jimmy Buffett and the tropical lifestyle he personifies. PHiP promotes the international network of Parrot Head Clubs as a humanitarian group sharing information and social activities for mutual benefit and engages in activities that are charitable, educational and that promote the general welfare of the community.
This madness started with one club in Atlanta (founder, Scott Nickerson) and has blossomed to a network of over 200 clubs around the U.S. plus international clubs based in Canada, Europe, the Caribbean and Australia.
About Eternal Reefs
The Genesis Reef Project dba Eternal Reefs, Inc. is a Sarasota-based non-profit organization that provides a creative, environmentally enhancing way to memorialize the cremated remains of a loved one. Eternal Reefs incorporates cremains into a proprietary concrete mixture used to cast artificial reef formations which are then dedicated as permanent memorials which bolster natural coastal reef formations. Eternal Reefs pioneered the concept of reef memorialization and, since 1998, the organization has placed more than 3,000 Memorial Reefs in 25 locations off the coasts of Florida (Atlantic and Gulf coasts) Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia, substantially increasing the ocean's diminishing reef systems. Memorial reefs can only go in properly permitted locations by the U.S. Government. Eternal Reefs has strategic partnerships with the Reef Ball Foundation and Reef Innovations. Learn more at http://www.EternalReefs.com or on the company's Facebook page.
The Reef Ball Foundation was formed in the late 1980s when friends dove the reefs off Key West on their University of Georgia breaks and saw the degradation of the natural coral reef systems. They developed the proprietary technology used today, widely considered to be the gold standard of engineered reefs worldwide. The organizations have worked in more than 80 countries and managed more than 5,000 reef projects representing nearly 2 million reefs worldwide. Eternal Reefs is the non-profit strategic partner with the Reef Ball Foundation and Reef Innovations and pioneered the concept of reef memorialization in 1998.
Media Contact
Becky Peterson, Eternal Reefs, +17703670321, [email protected], https://www.eternalreefs.com/
SOURCE Eternal Reefs
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