Volunteering at Great Lakes Aquarium

I just recently had my first volunteer dive in the Great Lakes Aquarium. It was a blast! The water is pretty cold. It was 55ºF - so we all wore drysuits. There were 3 of us - me, my husband & our friend David. We first got into the largest of the 3 big tanks. All new volunteers have to do a couple skills in the tank first - no matter what type of certification you have (Russell & I are divemasters & David is an instructor).

Right away when we got into the tank a crowd formed - so we had an audience for our mask removal & regulator retrieval, etc. While I was trying to put my mask back on a big Sturgeon was sucking on my head & they would swim right up in my face. I guess they were hungry! So, then we got to "perform" for the crowd - feeding fish. The big Sturgeon were really fun to feed. We would get them to come up off the bottom so the people could see their big sucker mouths come down to take food from our hands.

The other things we are supposed to do is clean the inside of the Plexiglass & scrub rocks. We didn't get a lot of cleaning done on the first dive since there were so many people watching. Then we moved into the 2 smaller tanks. I was a little cold by then, so I was happy to scrub some rocks. On the second dive I realized I wasn't just getting cold at that point - my feet were wet! After I got out I realized I was completely wet from the waist down. The drysuit I had borrowed had started leaking at the waist seal. This week we have to try to make sure it's all sealed up.... since I have to wear that same suit for the ice dive that's coming up. I would not be able to complete a dive if I had that much water in my suit for an ice dive - with 39ºF water!

Next time I will get some photos. I'm also hoping to get some good photos of the upcoming ice dive!