A Most Remarkable Experience, Part II
By Casey Wilson, East Sierra Branch
…continued from the previous showcase.
At the bottom of a steel ladder leading down into the aquarium, David gently urged a large ray to move out of our way so we could join it. After one last safety check — air pressure good, regulator normal, weights secure, mask down, buoyancy compensator inflated — I slipped into the water. Eye to eye with my guide we gave each other the signal to descend below the surface and begin the adventure.
Phil and Geoff went ahead with David while Paul and I held back to make adjustments to a minor problem with my dive equipment. After a bit we followed along behind the others. As we drifted down through the crystal-clear water myriad fish, some tiny, some huge, surrounded us displaying every imaginable color. A bonnet shark cruised past, patrolling the area. An eight-foot zebra shark lay resting on the sand below. A cownose ray glided by with barely a twitch of its six-foot wingspan. Suspended motionless under a huge faux coral fan, an immense grouper peered at us with bulging eyes. Faux coral fan?
Using gentle fin strokes we made our way into the first of three places where the public views the animals. I waved to the people and did “high fives” with some of the youngsters pressing their hands to the 14-inch-thick curved acrylic wall separating us.
The phony coral fan with the grouper hiding under it? Because coral is the most difficult live animal to maintain in an aquarium this huge, all of the florae is imitation. Fish and other aquatic animals can tolerate moderate variations in their environment that could be deadly to coral — not to mention the difficulty with the animal’s exotic diet of algae and zooplankton.
So that grouper’s hideout and all the other lifelike plants and structures are simulacra. Some are plastic (the coral fan, for example), others may be rubber or concrete; just as you might buy at Wal-Mart for a home-sized tank. So, just as those decorations in the home aquarium must occasionally be cleaned, a cadre of volunteers armed with scrub brushes and underwater vacuum cleaners tend to the cleaning chores in the Aquarium of the Pacific.
Except for the confines and diversity of animals, diving in the aquarium was much like dives we’ve done anywhere else. We observed the same safety rules we learned in our training. We experienced the same requirements for pressure equalization and buoyancy. Wending through underwater pathways not apparent to those on the dry side of the walls, it was easy to forget we were swimming in an area less than the point of a pin compared to the real-world oceans. Best of all, we had a remarkable experience to enter into our dive logs.
Several other aquariums, in the United States and other countries, offer similar adventures. Check with your nearest aquarium to see if they have a dive opportunity waiting for you. Google found some for me in Dubai, Europe, South America, and Africa that I’ve added to my “maybe someday” list.