I work as a volunteer at the aquarium and yesterday I had the opportunity to participate in the "Dive with the Gentle Giants" at the Georgia Aquarium.
Check in for the program is at 2:30. You only need to bring a bathing suite and C Card. They will allow personal masks, but no other gear. They provide all gear including wetsuits, gloves and booties. They gear is all ScubaPro and well maintained. At check in, they take a copy of C Card and Drivers License. At check in the will give friends and family instructions to meet back at 4, to ensure that they see you in the tunnel and the Ocean Voyager theater. The Divemasters will come down at 2:45 and will take you to the briefing at 3. The group is usually limited to 6 divers. You will have a briefing in class room over the River Scout exhibit. This gives you a great opportunity to see this exhibit from a different view. At 3:30 you are taking to the top of ocean voyager and given another onsite briefing and to meet the rest of the team and then sent to the changing room. They also mention the 5 by 5 rule, stay 5 feet off the bottom while swimming and swim no closer then 5 feet to a fish. In the changing room, they will have a bottle of water, a towel, your wetsuit and booties.
In the water there will be four divemasters, one leading, one trailing, one taking a video and one safety diver to ensure the giant grouper behave themselves and that you do not accidently ascend into the whale sharks. Two divemaster remain topside. These are the ones that provide the briefing and meet you for check in. To ensure everyone stays fresh, the duties for each divemaster rotate on a daily basis. All of the divemasters are very professional and friendly. This is one time I have seen a divemaster that didn't have a tip bucket sitting around. If you are interested in their requirements, they are currently advertising for a position.
When you return they will take some pictures and have you walk out to the floating dock. This is change from earlier, when you entered on the side. The whale sharks like to swim along the side of the exhibit, so the floating dock was added for their and your safety. You sit down, put on fins and a Divemaster will sit your gear up behind you. Once you are geared up they will signal you to do a forward roll into the water. The Divemasters estimate your weight and have it in the weight pouches of the BC. The estimate was very good, as I did not drop like a rock when I let the air out, but didn't have any issues descending. Once you signal ok, they then have you descend to the bottom and form a semi-circle around the videographer. I was the first one in, it was interesting to watch the last few, as they had a delay, while the whale sharks started playing in the bubbles. They dive runs about 30-40 minutes, depending on how quickly you get in the water. It is somewhat overwhelming to decide what you want to watch. While waiting on the bottom the Manta ray swam over to greet us and do a few loops. The whale sharks are constantly circling above the cow nose rays, guitar fish, sharks and grouper all swam up for a close look. My favorite was being able to swim up close to the wobbegong. Since they are all nocturnal, they are all sleeping on rocks. We swam over the tunnel, where our friends and family waited and then stopped in front of the Ocean Voyager theater for more pictures, we did lap around that area before finishing our figure eight.
After the dive there are hot showers with soap, shampoo and conditioner. The locker room is clean but somewhat cramped and its hard to find a dry spot to get dressed. After cleaning up, if you are quick, they give you a small behind the scenes tour including seeing the wobbegong pups and upside down jellys in the Beluga Lab, the zebra shark pups and wobbegong pups in the Tropical Diver lab, and the zebra sharks, epaulette sharks, rays, giant clams and mangroves on the topside of Tropical Diver. Your friends and family may also have the same tour. There are some limits due to timing and the age of the guests.
They then have a debrief where they hand out your t-shirts and photo and offer a DVD for sale. I found it to be a very enjoyable dive. It was something fun to do once and great experience. If you are there only for the whale sharks, the swim would be a better value and experience.
To those that say it is just a giant swimming pool, it is much larger than many of the springs I have dove in Florida. The exhibit holds 6.3 million gallons of water, ranges from 20 to 30 feet deep and is approximately the size of a football field. There are approximately 50 different species of fish and thousands in total. This is the only place you will dive with 4 whale sharks, a manta ray, hammerheads, sand tiger sharks, black tip reef sharks, humphead wrasse, giant grouper, potato cod, zebra sharks, wobbegong sharks, leopard whip tail rays, thorny rays, Atlantic stingrays, cow nose rays, black splotched rays, tarpon, batfish, blue tang, king angelfish, tarpon, giant guitarfish, bowmouth guitarfish, green sawfish, largetooth sawfish, pompano, lookdown, golden trevally, giant travelly, crevalle jack, horse-eye jack and mullet.
For those concerned about the impact on the whale sharks, they are continuing to study their behavior and if there is a change due to the divers or swimmers, they will terminate the program. As many divers are already in the exhibit for maintenance and to monitor the fish, this is not expected, but it is being monitored.
They cost is high, but as you can see from above, everything is provided for you including lots of supervision. Other things to consider, the Georgia Aquarium is a not for profit entity. The proceeds in excess of cost for this program are used to fund the 4R Program. Rehabilitation, Responsibility, Rescue and Research are the four areas of focus for this program.
Check in for the program is at 2:30. You only need to bring a bathing suite and C Card. They will allow personal masks, but no other gear. They provide all gear including wetsuits, gloves and booties. They gear is all ScubaPro and well maintained. At check in, they take a copy of C Card and Drivers License. At check in the will give friends and family instructions to meet back at 4, to ensure that they see you in the tunnel and the Ocean Voyager theater. The Divemasters will come down at 2:45 and will take you to the briefing at 3. The group is usually limited to 6 divers. You will have a briefing in class room over the River Scout exhibit. This gives you a great opportunity to see this exhibit from a different view. At 3:30 you are taking to the top of ocean voyager and given another onsite briefing and to meet the rest of the team and then sent to the changing room. They also mention the 5 by 5 rule, stay 5 feet off the bottom while swimming and swim no closer then 5 feet to a fish. In the changing room, they will have a bottle of water, a towel, your wetsuit and booties.
In the water there will be four divemasters, one leading, one trailing, one taking a video and one safety diver to ensure the giant grouper behave themselves and that you do not accidently ascend into the whale sharks. Two divemaster remain topside. These are the ones that provide the briefing and meet you for check in. To ensure everyone stays fresh, the duties for each divemaster rotate on a daily basis. All of the divemasters are very professional and friendly. This is one time I have seen a divemaster that didn't have a tip bucket sitting around. If you are interested in their requirements, they are currently advertising for a position.
When you return they will take some pictures and have you walk out to the floating dock. This is change from earlier, when you entered on the side. The whale sharks like to swim along the side of the exhibit, so the floating dock was added for their and your safety. You sit down, put on fins and a Divemaster will sit your gear up behind you. Once you are geared up they will signal you to do a forward roll into the water. The Divemasters estimate your weight and have it in the weight pouches of the BC. The estimate was very good, as I did not drop like a rock when I let the air out, but didn't have any issues descending. Once you signal ok, they then have you descend to the bottom and form a semi-circle around the videographer. I was the first one in, it was interesting to watch the last few, as they had a delay, while the whale sharks started playing in the bubbles. They dive runs about 30-40 minutes, depending on how quickly you get in the water. It is somewhat overwhelming to decide what you want to watch. While waiting on the bottom the Manta ray swam over to greet us and do a few loops. The whale sharks are constantly circling above the cow nose rays, guitar fish, sharks and grouper all swam up for a close look. My favorite was being able to swim up close to the wobbegong. Since they are all nocturnal, they are all sleeping on rocks. We swam over the tunnel, where our friends and family waited and then stopped in front of the Ocean Voyager theater for more pictures, we did lap around that area before finishing our figure eight.
After the dive there are hot showers with soap, shampoo and conditioner. The locker room is clean but somewhat cramped and its hard to find a dry spot to get dressed. After cleaning up, if you are quick, they give you a small behind the scenes tour including seeing the wobbegong pups and upside down jellys in the Beluga Lab, the zebra shark pups and wobbegong pups in the Tropical Diver lab, and the zebra sharks, epaulette sharks, rays, giant clams and mangroves on the topside of Tropical Diver. Your friends and family may also have the same tour. There are some limits due to timing and the age of the guests.
They then have a debrief where they hand out your t-shirts and photo and offer a DVD for sale. I found it to be a very enjoyable dive. It was something fun to do once and great experience. If you are there only for the whale sharks, the swim would be a better value and experience.
To those that say it is just a giant swimming pool, it is much larger than many of the springs I have dove in Florida. The exhibit holds 6.3 million gallons of water, ranges from 20 to 30 feet deep and is approximately the size of a football field. There are approximately 50 different species of fish and thousands in total. This is the only place you will dive with 4 whale sharks, a manta ray, hammerheads, sand tiger sharks, black tip reef sharks, humphead wrasse, giant grouper, potato cod, zebra sharks, wobbegong sharks, leopard whip tail rays, thorny rays, Atlantic stingrays, cow nose rays, black splotched rays, tarpon, batfish, blue tang, king angelfish, tarpon, giant guitarfish, bowmouth guitarfish, green sawfish, largetooth sawfish, pompano, lookdown, golden trevally, giant travelly, crevalle jack, horse-eye jack and mullet.
For those concerned about the impact on the whale sharks, they are continuing to study their behavior and if there is a change due to the divers or swimmers, they will terminate the program. As many divers are already in the exhibit for maintenance and to monitor the fish, this is not expected, but it is being monitored.
They cost is high, but as you can see from above, everything is provided for you including lots of supervision. Other things to consider, the Georgia Aquarium is a not for profit entity. The proceeds in excess of cost for this program are used to fund the 4R Program. Rehabilitation, Responsibility, Rescue and Research are the four areas of focus for this program.
