Atlanta Giants

I was in Atlanta this week on a short business trip. Being an avid scuba diver, I decided to take advantage of the Georgia Aquarium’s whale shark dive program. They have 4 whale sharks in captivity (all rescued) in a 4-million gallon tank that houses something like 2,000 other animals. And that’s just the whale shark tank; this place is huge!

For a pretty hefty price, they’ll let you and some other divers hop in the tank and swim with all the animals. The whale sharks were amazing, but they were too big and too fast to really take in on such a short dive. I found myself staring the most at the large manta rays and various “regular” shark species, including some good size sand tiger sharks.

Just like the actual city of Atlanta, I didn’t end up shooting much in the aquarium. I had the intention of doing both, but timing just didn’t work out.

Below is some stock footage from the DVD of my dive. Unfortunately, something’s buggy with the DVD and I can’t rip the portion of the disk with my footage on it. Oh well. I think this still gives a good idea what we saw.  You’ll probably need a Facebook account to view it.  See below for pics.

Like I said, I didn’t shoot much in the aquarium, but here’s a small selection for you.

A hammerhead shark swims through the whale shark exhibit. A giant manta shows off for the audience at the whale shark tank. A cuttlefish investigates me and my camera. Giant squid carcass The last thing a crab sees. I think this is a moon jelly (fried egg), but I'm not certain. 2 of the 4 namesake inhabitants of the whale shark exhibit During my dive, one of these sand tiger sharks kept swimming right up to us. Jazz night at the aquarium, although it was less jazz and more salsa.

One Response to Atlanta Giants

  1. Lorie September 30, 2009 at 11:23 am #

    The Moon Jelly kinds looks like an embryo. Cool pics!

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