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Birthday Week '05 - Part II
At first, we spent some time checking out penguins, seals and sea lions, and some cool-ass jellyfish.
But naturally, I was immediately focused on finding my favorite animal on the entire planet. And no, not Brian Dawkins.
Sharks, dude. Sharks.
A little-known fact: a group of sharks is called a "shiver." Thanks, Wikipedia.
The kid in the Dawkins jersey, by the way, was a harbinger* of my own purchase of one Saturday afternoon. Seemed like the thing to wear for my day at the aquarium.
[* - That also marks my third use of the word "harbinger" so far in this birthday wrap-up.]
They've got a tunnel, a la Jaws 3, where you can walk and be surrounded by sharks on all sides.
Now, seeing sharks on my birthday trip was wonderful, but there was, of course, that other surprise... As we were standing in line to get in, my eye caught a sign above the ticket window. It read "Swim With The Sharks," with a brief explanation of their newest exhibit. I couldn't register it right away, until I looked at Cait and saw her grinning HUGELY. In disbelief, I started "ohhh, get the f-" at which point she covered my mouth to protect the ears of the children near us. And then I giggled like a titmouse tickling a schoolgirl. I was going to live my dream, to be in the water with live, swimming sharks.
Now, as they explained to us in the brief safety class before our swim, they couldn't let us swim in the wide open tank with the sharks. They are, obviously, wild and untrainable animals, and we're going into THEIR habitat, wearing dark wetsuits and flippers, and would be floating on the surface. For an animal whose primary prey is dark-colored surface-dwelling mammals, that would be too tempting. Instead, they had a portion of the tank designated for us to float and watch them, but it was wide open for the sharks to enter and check us out too.
Here we are in the safety class:
In that last picture, the lifeguard on the far left is Hot Liz. In chatting with her, Cait found out her birthday was the same day as mine, albeit 6 years later. Small world. Plus she was hot. That's why we called her Hot Liz.
After the class, we took to the water.
Our class teacher, Cheri, also served as the on-deck lifeguard.
Cait was also on deck, snapping shots of us and the sharks:
As was to be expected, they came by several times to check out these aliens in their home. It took ALL my self-control to not push myself beyond our boundary and swim with them. Yes, it would have been stupid and life-threatening, but I just wanted to swim alongside them so badly. They got close enough to touch several times, but as a rule, you should never touch a shark. They're too unpredictable.
This was the instruction board for the class. Now, see there, under "safety" on the right side of the board, about halfway down where it says "Lights out/power failure"? Well, I saw that and thought, "seriously, how often do they lose power here?" Well, we'll come back to that...
After being in the tank for awhile, Hot Liz and the other lifeguard whose name eludes me led us to the stingray enclosure, where we'd take turns feeding the rays.
I was waiting for my turn, learning how to tell the difference between a doctor fish and a grunt...
...and then the lights went out.
After calmly getting us out of the tank with the help of emergency lights, we all waited on deck.
After a moment on the walkie talkie, Cheri told us the best news of the day: since it would take at least 20 minutes to regenerate enough power to light the enclosure, they were giving us each a pass to come back and do the entire encounter again, for free. Happy Birthday, Joe!
We got the souvenir t-shirt and mask/snorkel combo as well, but the best part of the gift was the encounter itself, AND the fact that I get to do it all again. Thanks, PECO!
Here's some info on Adventure Aquarium's Swim With The Sharks exhibit. I'll be going back sometime very soon to see my beloved sharks. And Hot Liz. Cait thinks she looks like Kirsten Dunst.
[Click to check out PART I or PART III.]
*****N*T*G*****
Never hesitate to comment!
But naturally, I was immediately focused on finding my favorite animal on the entire planet. And no, not Brian Dawkins.
Sharks, dude. Sharks.
A little-known fact: a group of sharks is called a "shiver." Thanks, Wikipedia.
The kid in the Dawkins jersey, by the way, was a harbinger* of my own purchase of one Saturday afternoon. Seemed like the thing to wear for my day at the aquarium.
[* - That also marks my third use of the word "harbinger" so far in this birthday wrap-up.]
They've got a tunnel, a la Jaws 3, where you can walk and be surrounded by sharks on all sides.
Now, seeing sharks on my birthday trip was wonderful, but there was, of course, that other surprise... As we were standing in line to get in, my eye caught a sign above the ticket window. It read "Swim With The Sharks," with a brief explanation of their newest exhibit. I couldn't register it right away, until I looked at Cait and saw her grinning HUGELY. In disbelief, I started "ohhh, get the f-" at which point she covered my mouth to protect the ears of the children near us. And then I giggled like a titmouse tickling a schoolgirl. I was going to live my dream, to be in the water with live, swimming sharks.
Now, as they explained to us in the brief safety class before our swim, they couldn't let us swim in the wide open tank with the sharks. They are, obviously, wild and untrainable animals, and we're going into THEIR habitat, wearing dark wetsuits and flippers, and would be floating on the surface. For an animal whose primary prey is dark-colored surface-dwelling mammals, that would be too tempting. Instead, they had a portion of the tank designated for us to float and watch them, but it was wide open for the sharks to enter and check us out too.
Here we are in the safety class:
In that last picture, the lifeguard on the far left is Hot Liz. In chatting with her, Cait found out her birthday was the same day as mine, albeit 6 years later. Small world. Plus she was hot. That's why we called her Hot Liz.
After the class, we took to the water.
Our class teacher, Cheri, also served as the on-deck lifeguard.
Cait was also on deck, snapping shots of us and the sharks:
As was to be expected, they came by several times to check out these aliens in their home. It took ALL my self-control to not push myself beyond our boundary and swim with them. Yes, it would have been stupid and life-threatening, but I just wanted to swim alongside them so badly. They got close enough to touch several times, but as a rule, you should never touch a shark. They're too unpredictable.
This was the instruction board for the class. Now, see there, under "safety" on the right side of the board, about halfway down where it says "Lights out/power failure"? Well, I saw that and thought, "seriously, how often do they lose power here?" Well, we'll come back to that...
After being in the tank for awhile, Hot Liz and the other lifeguard whose name eludes me led us to the stingray enclosure, where we'd take turns feeding the rays.
I was waiting for my turn, learning how to tell the difference between a doctor fish and a grunt...
...and then the lights went out.
After calmly getting us out of the tank with the help of emergency lights, we all waited on deck.
After a moment on the walkie talkie, Cheri told us the best news of the day: since it would take at least 20 minutes to regenerate enough power to light the enclosure, they were giving us each a pass to come back and do the entire encounter again, for free. Happy Birthday, Joe!
We got the souvenir t-shirt and mask/snorkel combo as well, but the best part of the gift was the encounter itself, AND the fact that I get to do it all again. Thanks, PECO!
Here's some info on Adventure Aquarium's Swim With The Sharks exhibit. I'll be going back sometime very soon to see my beloved sharks. And Hot Liz. Cait thinks she looks like Kirsten Dunst.
[Click to check out PART I or PART III.]
*****N*T*G*****
Never hesitate to comment!
posted by JMP at 7:01 PM
2 Comments:
holy shit, man, this is exhaustive!
That's how we do it here at NTG, dude... exhaustively! It'd be in our mission statement, if we ever wrote one.
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