OK, class. It's the end of the week, so let's dive right into a pop quiz, courtesy of the Seattle Aquarium Society's publication "Currents."
What do sea monsters eat? Fish and ships.
Why don't lobsters share? Because they're shellfish.
What comes after a seahorse? A D-horse.
And now let's add a question of our own: What do you get when you take a medical-lab worker, wrap him in a black-and-yellow drysuit and drop him into a 400,000-gallon tank?
You get volunteer diver Jim Middleton, 49, an Edmonds native with a passing resemblance to George Carlin, and a man as comfortable in the 48-degree waters of Puget Sound as are many of the sea creatures he hangs out with.
Ssh! That's him over there, starting the talk he gives in the aquarium's underwater dome. Let's listen in ...
"May I have your attention please. In about 15 minutes, two incredibly brave divers are going to drop into our slice of Puget Sound, hand-feed all 47 species of fish and then wash all 105 windows. My name is Jim. I'm one of the divers. And here is my diving partner, Veronica."
Look. Even the little kids, who were squirming and shouting a minute ago, are closely eyeing the stainless-steel pan held by Veronica von Allworden, Middleton's partner for this dive session.
One by one, she lifts up the shiny silver herring, the itty-bitty pink shrimp and a pinkish-white squid the lunch she and Middleton will be feeding the fish.
"Anyone ever had calamari?" she asks, hoisting a 6-inch-long squid, hood up, tentacles down. ALAN BERNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES Seattle Aquarium diver Jim Middleton suits up for another session of fish feeding and window cleaning.
"EEEEEwww!" comes the collective reply from the younger set.
In a few moments, the divers will drop into the tank to hand out the underwater meal to characters with names like Anarrhichthys ocellatus (wolf eels), Sebastes pinniger (canary rockfish), Ophidon elongatus (lingcod) and Raja binoculata (big skate).
And when they do, Middleton and von Allworden will be proving once again that one of the most important forms of life at the Seattle Aquarium is a human one: volunteers.
"We have volunteers in every section of the aquarium," said dive-safety officer Jeff Christiansen. "We couldn't even open the doors without them."
Consider the numbers: The aquarium has a paid staff of 65, but more than 450 volunteers, including 74 divers. Volunteers trained at the aquarium help care for animals, give interpretive talks, prepare food, clean tanks and perform a host of other tasks.
On Feb. 26, would-be volunteers age 16 and older are invited to an orientation session. They should first get an application form by calling 206-386-4320, Ext. 6.
Few divers at the aquarium have put in more volunteer time than Middleton, who started in 1992 and recently passed the 4,000-hour mark.
He's scheduled to dive every other Thursday and gives a talk each Sunday on marine mammals. But Christiansen calls him a "super-sub" because Middleton is often called upon to fill other shifts and is trained to work in several areas of the aquarium.
"It's nice having someone that's reliable and gives that much support to the facility," Christiansen said.
Making realistic-looking "logs" out of plastic pipe and stuffing them with mealworms is one of the projects Middleton is working on these days. Placed on a sandy beach in one display, the pipes have tiny holes that let shorebirds dig out their dinner as they would in a natural environment.
By profession, Middleton is a histologist at HarborviewMedicalCenter. Histologist? That's someone who specializes in the microscopic study of human or animal tissue. "If they take your pancreas out," Middleton explains, "it comes to me."
His hospital schedule gives him Tuesday and Thursday afternoons free, time he often spends at the aquarium. "Working at work gives me money to do what I want, and working here gives me satisfaction," he said.
Middleton, who is single and lives in Lynnwood, also is a steward of the underwater diving park near the Edmonds ferry dock. He has helped mark underwater trails there and sink boats to create artificial reefs as habitat for fish and attractions for divers.
If he seems to have a bit of seawater in his veins, it may be because he grew up a short walk from the Edmonds beach; "I was down there every summer all summer long." By 13, he was diving, his enthusiasm compounded by the fact that two older brothers got into diving through an Explorer Scout post.
"And like everyone else, I watched 'Sea Hunt' and Jacques Cousteau specials."
One of the more dramatic aquarium projects Middleton enjoys is going on now: Lights, cameras and bait are periodically set up in 50-foot-deep water off the end of Pier 59 in the hope of attracting bluntnose sixgill sharks, third-largest predatory shark in the world, which can get up to 15 feet in length.
Visitors to the aquarium today may have a chance, if they're lucky, to catch a glimpse of one of these elusive sharks on monitors at the shark-watching station in the Searching for Sixgills exhibit.
Although Middleton has a keen appreciation for the underwater environment and a fondness for many forms of aquatic life, his interest is not completely, shall we say, un-shellfish.
Asked what has been the single biggest incentive for his diving over the years, Middleton practically salivates. "Dungeness crab," he says without hesitation. "I love 'em."
