lil_lucky6363:
i am looking for a volunteer program that i can move away to do. it sucks for diving living in birmingham al. does any one know where i can find a place or site that can help me?
While this doesn't require moving really, the Chattanooga Aquarium
takes "volunteer" divers. It's about an 2 hour drive up the road
from Birmingham.
To dive with them, you have to start at the bottom of the "bucket"
so to say. You start out by committing to work at least one
or two days a month during the "work week" (Mon - Fri) and
then you start doing the "bottom feeder jobs" like scrubbing
the tanks, etc. I understand it's not a glamorous volunteer
job.
They don't have that nice of a saltwater tank either. It's
a square box with very little in "fake coral" in it. Prob 20 or 25
foot water depth maybe 40 or 50 feet long and 15 feet wide.
It's nothing special in my opinion. Their better tank is the
"river" tank which has all kinds of neat stuff in it. Most of
their tanks are "smaller" onces that are in the 50 to 500 gallon
size and not big enough to dive in. However, they are building
an expansion and perhaps they'll have a more impressive
salt water tank then.
To "join", they have a orientation class you have to take and
they only teach it about once per year. They also make
you fill out lots of stupid paperwork and agree to them
doing a private investigative background check, give
your drivers license and social security number, agree to
all other kinds of interviews, etc. All this to have to
take off during the work week to scrub tank glass in
a blah saltwater tank. After reading all the crap you
had to do and go through and talking to others, we threw
our application package in the trash.
But if you looking for a somewhat local volunteer dive
opportunity, this is about it.