Georgia Aquarium

UOne of our must see's on our list is the Georgia Aquarium. Up until last year it was the largest Aquarium in the world with over 10 million gallons of water in the aquariums. Be prepared to be bored with lots of photos in this post. We spent 9 hours at the Aquarium and I only got to see half of it. I suppose I should have left the Ocean Voyager exhibit til last...

This exhibit blew me away, I have never seen an aquarium so big! It is larger than a football field

Has an underwater viewing tunnel at one end 

and a large viewing window at the other end...

Here are some photos we took...

We did go and see other exhibits...

The Beluga whales

The dolphins

The cold water creatures...

The warm water creatures...

The Jelly fish..

The Penguins..

There was also a large fantastic and very educational display of polymerised animals. I found this exhibit really intriguing as the animals on display had all their features and organs in tact so you could see their "insides".

There was a Mola Mola, or sunfish

A manta ray

A thresher shark giving birth...

And pups still in the womb...

A sand tiger...or as we know it...a grey nurse shark

And a whale shark 

There were many more which included fish and crabs of all kinds.

The highlight of our day was a dive with the Georgia Aquarium dive team in the Ocean Voyager exhibit with whale sharks and manta rays.

We were given a behind the scenes tour of the ocean voyager exhibit by a great volunteer called Art. The aquarium has 165 paid staff and over 280 volunteers. 

Art showed us the genetic and blood testing laboratory with all the state of the art equipment.

The feeding preparation room...where the two second rule does not apply! If food is dropped on the ground it is discarded.

We were also shown the pumping and filtration room...it was enormous!!!! They turn over 6.3 million gallons of water every hour, which is the entire volume of the Ocean Voyager display. 

There is 10 miles of tubing carrying the water through these 18-20 pumping stations. These pumps are dedicated to the one exhibit. Each exhibit has its own pumping stations.

Which are all monitored electronically

Then we went went up on the top deck at the surface of the Ocean Voyager pool

To watch the whale sharks be fed.

They use a mixture of shrimp and small fish

And use what is called a targeted feeding approach. The feeders get into rafts and move up and down the lines over the pool and dribble the food into the mouths of the whale sharks as they follow the rafts up and down the pool. 

We then went to get ready to go hop in the water with them

The dive platform

The dive gear was all top quality and very well maintained and they had more of it than any dive shop or scuba schoolI I have ever seen. Two full time dive gear attendants are required to look after it.

There were only six divers, a lead dive master, a safety diver and a videographer so we had plenty of one on one time with the big fish and the other animals from four oceans. The only place you can find this mix is in an aquarium. 

It was a truly amazing experience, definitely one of my top ten dives.

Overall I was impressed with the Aquarium. The displays were very well done and husbandry looked second to none. Most exhibits had excellent educational information and made the most of getting good conservation messages across to the captive audience. 

The only disappointment was the dolphin show. The show was extraordinary with six dolphins doing amazing tricks as well as special effects and singing, lighting and dancing. There were probably close to 2000 people watching the show and there was not one conservation message delivered, not even something simple and quick about plastic bags or dolphin free tuna. That was a real let down for me. 

Thank goodness the rest of the exhibits did the educational job so well!

I had an absolute fantastic time and didn't want to leave! At 8pm Paul dragged me away from the big screen and took me home. (She was lying in front of it - Paul)