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Giant manta ray aquarium6/17/2023 ![]() Special thanks goes to our gracious host the Georgia Aquarium, the Coral Reef Alliance for lodging, and AirTran for covering travel. Fortunately Al was there to capture the moment: M and I came up giggling with nerdy glee. I’d also like to see a more explicit conservation message – during the dive I kept thinking that we really must ensure that exhibit dives like this are a fun extra, and not the only way to see the living ocean.ĭr. Wouldn’t it be nice to know that groupers are territorial (and often very overfished & endangered) or that manta rays have warm blood in their brains or that the aquarium’s whale sharks were rescued from the seafood trade? A few factoids can go a long way. My one suggestion? There was almost no science content given to the divers before our plunge. M goes to infinity.AND BEYOND! Miriam does the "YMCA." M and I lack all dignity appropriate to our station. The look of total astonishment and joy when a kid realized that a diver was waving JUST TO THEM was fantastic. I loved the fish-eye view of the people, too. In the below video, we are the first two divers – Dr. ![]() In order to avoid becoming giant-fish-roadkill, the divers stay in the lower third of the tank, but we had plenty of time to admire the manta ray backflipping in our bubbles and the whale sharks gliding above. ![]() The gentle giants for which the exhibit is named – whale sharks and manta rays – frolicked mostly over our heads. I have never been so close to so many laid-back fish. M, and a guitarfish nibbled lightly on my fins. ![]() A giant grouper tried to snuggle with Dr. In the first five minutes of the dive, three snaggly-toothed sand tiger sharks came right at us, shifting at the last moment to swim over our heads. The animals on exhibit inside Ocean Voyager are habituated to divers, so they don’t avoid you at all. So what does it feel like to dive in the world’s biggest tank? EPIC. Al aka para_sight: “Hey, while you’re visiting Georgia Aquarium for the Deep Sea News retreat, I can offer you the opportunity to dive in the Ocean Voyager exhibit, which is our (and the world’s) biggest tank, featuring 4 whale sharks, 4 manta rays and about 8,000 other sharks and fishes.” ![]()
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