Rachel Bobis, the widow of a popular Long Beach High School teacher who died last month while surfing in Indonesia, is speaking out about the vacation turned nightmare.
The 28-year-old said that she believes her husband fell off his board and hit his head on a reef and went unconscious.
Thirty-two-year old Daniel Bobis went missing in waters off Sumatra island setting off a massive search party until fisherman found his body four days later about 100 miles away.
“Another surfer who had been out said that he had been tangled with Danny’s board on the inside but never saw Danny,” Rashel wrote in her blog earlier this week, the first time she has spoken out since Daniel’s death. “There is no evidence that this surfer hit Danny or that his board hit Danny’s board.”
Initial reports indicated Daniel had knocked boards with another surfer coming off a powerful 10-foot wave.
Daniel Bobis was a math teacher, high school surf team coach and drummer in the local hardcore band Cipher.
The couple had been about halfway through a six-week vacation at some of the best surf spots in Southeast Asia with a friend of theirs when Bobis went missing in a remote region of the island nation.
Rachel said she scattered her husband’s ashes in the Atlantic Ocean when she and dozens of fellow mourning surfers paddled out into the surf off Long Beach earlier this month.
“As his wife, and his love, I felt it my responsibility and honor to bring him back to where he belongs,” in the ocean, she wrote.
News of his death prompted an outpouring of grief in the seaside community. Friends are planning a benefit concert and other fundraisers for his family next month and in October.
-With Associated Press