Nothing Taken for Granted at Vigil for Bobis

A vigil held for Dan Bobis on Thursday evening, just hours after the surfer’s body was found in the ocean off an Indonesian island, was marked by his friends taking lessons from his untimely death.

“It’s a shame that sometimes you have to lose people to know how beautiful and precious they are,” Maurice Mitchell told hundreds who had gathered with candles in their hands that illuminated the dark boardwalk at Laurelton Boulevard.

Mitchell stood on a bench with fellow friends of Bobis who addressed the crowd, talking over the sounds of waves crashing on the shore. Among them was Chris Fry, who wanted mourners to know that the gathering was not about being sad, but rather about celebrating Bobis’ life and his love for everything he did, from surfing to karate to playing the drums in a band.

“I underestimated Danny’s impact on people,” Fry said about what he has learned since his friend went missing in Sumatra on Sunday morning while on a surfing expedition with his wife, Rachel. “He was my friend and I took that for granted, and I think what we need to realize right now is” — Fry paused to control his emotions — “anyone in your life that you love and care about, do not take it for granted, do not wait a day to tell them how much you care, how much you love them and how much you see the impact that they have on your life. Because you never know.”

A lifelong Long Beach resident, Bobis, 32, was a math teacher at Long Beach High School. He formed the school’s first surf club and, last year, the first district-sanctioned competitive team in New York State. He worked as an advisor to the team and was a co-founder of the Long Beach Surfer’s Association.

After Bobis' surfboard washed ashore without him Sunday morning, his family and friends set up a PayPal fund to help search for him where he disappeared off the remote island.

On Thursday, Krys Maniecki said that Bobis was one of his oldest friends, having met him at Temple Emanu-El when they were both four-years-old.

“This is a beautiful thing, to see how many lives he’s touched,” Maniecki told the crowd of many teenagers. “It heartens me to know that.”

The vigil was spearheaded by Maria Aguinaga, a recent LBHS graduate who had Bobis as a teacher at the Middle School. When she and her friend, Maria Mercado, heard the news that Bobis’ body had been found Thursday, they decided to hold the vigil and spread the word mainly through Facebook. The two young women and members from Bobis’ metal/hardcore band, Cipher, showed up on the boardwalk with more than 500 candles.

In keeping with the vigil’s lighter theme, Mercardo told a humorous encounter she had with Bobis at the high school that made the grieving crowd laugh. She also recalled the many contacts he gave her when she wrote an article about a proposed liquid natural gas facility off Long Beach’s shores for the school’s newspaper, The Tide.

“He overwhelmed me with so many sources,” Mercado said after the ceremony. “And he was such an awesome person when I met him.”

Now Mercado and her friends want to purchase a bench on the boardwalk in memory of Bobis.

Asked what she got out of holding the vigil, she simply said, “Closure.” Then, after thinking more, she added: “I really feel good about this night, and I think the positive energy from it will spread through the town.”