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A few guys from the shop are divers for the LB Aquarium. They seem to love it. I've spoke with a few other people on the dive teams there, the concensus is the same, they love it. I've been invited a few times for the try outs, unfortunately, my schedule at the moment just has no room for anything else. I'll have my ITC done in just a matter of a week or two. Conditions permitting, that is. I might just show up for the next try out in August. It sounds like alot of fun. I understand they have done alot to recreate some of the more famous reefs of the world there too with the respective marine life native to them. I'd imagine you get to learn alot about the different fishes. Divers on the teams there do often give talks using UW communications to guests via loudspeakers, so I would have to believe that they teach thier volunteers quite a bit.
norcaldiver once bubbled... I've contacted my local aquarium and finally have been invited to try out (skills test, diving knowledge test, etc.) to be one of the Vol. divers.
Has anyone done this, had a friend do this.....friend of a friend....
It sounds really exciting, but I was looking for the real world take on this. Do you actually get to learn things about different fishes behavior, do you get to help out more than just cleaning the glass?
Why would an aquarium tell you to use your own gear?
It would seem like you could introduce any number of problems into the tanks by using gear that might introduce disease or other stuff into an aquarium.
Is this the practice elsewhere? I took a behind the scenes tour of the New Orleans Aquarium once, and I thought they said they provided all the gear for those very reasons.
During shark mating season we were given lectures as to behaviour and mating process.
We were encouraged to ask questions, they are usually passionate and will talk fish for hours.
It used to get boring on guided dives so I would keep one eye on sharks and paying sightsee divers and the other for shark teeth.
Sometimes you could find 4 or 5, I used to give them to kids that were watching Mum or Dad in the tank it really made their day exciting.
If you love fish you should like tank work as you will get to see all the different habits they have.
And you will be able to whone your bouyancy skills
Get your wrist exercises up for all the waving kids.
Also clean swear words of your slate as I held a message up to a kid through perspex and realized to late that the rest of the slate was not for young eyes.
Good luck
We used our own gear and paying divers could bring in their own.
I've made inquiries into the Dallas Aquarium, the Dallas World Aquarium and the Texas State Aquarium in Corpus Christi. I missed the interviewing sessions at the Dallas Aquarium, but maybe I'll get another chance next year.
I don't think I would mind too much cleaning the glass and "coral" and I think it might be fun to interact with visiting children.
I went to the interview/tryouts for the AOP in Long Beach and who should I meet, but GQMedic - good to meet you. Seems like a really good group of people. Got a pretty long lecture on what they do, why they do it, how much they love it, etc. It must be a pretty good gig because they had more vol helpers there than candidates. People that had been there for 3-5 years
So anyway, I'm pretty jazzed. We should find out by Wed who made it and who gets to come back next time.
Wish GQ and I - and the rest of us - luck.
I frequently take my classes to Marineland near St Augustine FL on their OW 1&2. It's a great place to get acclimated to Open Water with over 400 fish, 2 huge sea turtles and a shark. I always schedule their dives around fish feeding time ... They all love the dives.
Marineland allows you to use your own gear since it is not a closed circuit water treatment tank...they pump the water in directly from the ocean from well heads just past the break.
The historic ambiance is also there, it's the oldest public aquaruim in the world. Sea Hunt, Creature from the Black Lagoon were filmed there.
Around Christmas a LDS has a Santa Diver and Christmas tree on the bottem...kids get to decorate the tree underwater....though they are too old to sit on Santa's lap
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