On Saturday, I drove up to the Great Lakes Aquarium in Duluth to do my first dive as a volunteer diver. For those of you not familiar with the aquarium, check out its website.
Great Lakes Aquarium. One of the main exhibits is Isle Royale. Its in the center of the aquarium and is divided into 3 smaller exhibits. Within each of these 25 foot deep tanks are large trout, pike and sturgeon among other cold water fish found in Lake Superior. Because these fish are COLD water fish, the water is kept around 50 degrees. Great for trout, not so pleasant for humans.
It had a been a couple years since my last dive so I was a bit rusty. The dive instructor walked me through the equipment they use (just a bit different than the stuff I trained in) and then I got into a wetsuit. Usually, there are 2 divers but on Saturday there were 3 of us. Another girl about my age was also getting trained in on volunteer diving. After we were all geared up it was time for the show.
The nice thing about this exhibit is that they have an educator doing an interpretive talk while people are cleaning and feeding the sturgeon. We started our dive by just having a little fun and getting used to the tanks before running through some basic dive skills. I got to feed some sturgeon as big as me. These fish are so used to be fed by divers that they actually come up to you and try to suck on you. I wish I had pictures because at one point I was feeding a sturgeon above me while another was between my legs sucking on my calf. I guess you just have to use your imagination.
It was a really fun morning for me. I forgot how much fun it was to dive AND I get to check another thing off my day zero list - volunteer somewhere. Now that they have signed off on me diving I hope to get back up there soon!
