Like last time, our last two days in town were spent frantically trying to finish up our respective projects, running a few last minute errands, and saying our goodbyes. Last night we took a red-eye flight from San Diego to Atlanta, Georgia. We arrived in Atlanta at 0630. We had a 10 hour layover in Atlanta. We had no idea what to do with ourselves for so long. We found out there is a train that goes from the airport into downtown. We decided to go into town and walk around and check out Atlanta. We went into the train station and consulted a map. On the map it listed some tourist attractions, including the world’s biggest aquarium. Hmmm, that sounded like a fun way to pass the day. It is one of the rare times we have played tourist in the last 15 months without Kosmos nearby (other was Hong Kong), and ironic that it involves sea life.
The train weaves between being above and below ground. From what we could see, Atlanta is very green in the suburb areas, with lots of inviting looking yards with big trees. The city itself looks much like any city center, a concrete jungle with tall buildings. It is clean, modern, and nice. Neither of us had ever been here, and we weren’t sure what to expect. We guess we didn’t expect it to be so urban. Our mental images of the South are of more historic cities with old plantation style buildings.
The aquarium is only a few blocks from the train stop. We were disappointed to see that it didn’t open for another hour and a half, so we parked ourselves at the Starbucks across the street. We probably should have walked around and checked out the city some more, but we were absolutely exhausted from the red-eye flight. We didn’t feel like walking, especially with our heavy carry on bags. We drank coffee in a desperate effort to stay awake enough to enjoy the aquarium.
The aquarium is quite impressive. As you walk in the entrance, there is an enormous tank on both sides of you filled with assorted jack fish trevally, pompano, permit, scad, and so forth.
The first display we went to is called Ocean Voyager and is a warm water display. It is their biggest display, and it was amazing. The tank is truly massive. You can walk around the tank at different levels, and even walk under it in one area. There are tons of species in there, many of which we recognized from our dive trips in assorted tropical places. Most noteworthy are the sharks — four whale sharks, hammer head sharks, zebra sharks, and black tipped reef sharks all gracefully swim around the tank. We were fascinated by them. Whale and hammerhead sharks are pictured here.
There are lots of other impressive species, as well. There are guitar fish and wobbegongs in there, which we had never heard of before. If we had seen them in the wild, we would have mistaken both of them for sharks. There are large tooth sawfish in there, which also could be mistaken for a shark.
There is an immensely large species of fish that Christi thought it was potato cod and Eric thought was grouper. It turned out to be a potato grouper.
To round out the tank, there was a big assortment of additional species, including sting rays, Napoleon wrasse, batfish, trevally and much more.
From there we went to the movie. It is an extra $5.00. It is a 3D, animated, musical kids’ movie about the importance of preserving the environment. The movie was well done, but it is a kids’ movie. No underlying adult humor in there anywhere.
The second display we went to was also warm water display, called Tropical Diver. There is an area of assorted jellyfish off to the side in separate tanks. Jellyfish are so pretty and so graceful. The first is a seat nettle, the second a moon jelly.
The main tank of this exhibit has a lot more fish in it, mostly reef fish, and none of them were as spectacular as the ones in the Ocean Voyager exhibit. There is a coral reef, but the coral is mostly dead. It looks like they may have tried to transport it and it didn’t take to the new environment so well. Again, we recognized most of the fish from our own dives, and learned a few names for unrecognized species we have seen in the past. There were surgeon fish, turbo, butterfly fish, angel fish, gobys, and skinny little eels. New names we learned include pigmy sweepers, little pink and yellow guys with big eyes; tuskfish, orange and purple striped guys; and anthias, also little pink and yellow guys, but with little eyes.
There was a cold water display. It featured three beluga whales. They are pure white, and graceful as they swim and play. We watched a show where the trainers tried to get them to do tricks. The whales weren’t being very cooperative. There were also penguins, sea otters and sea lions, all of which are fun to watch. They also had a display with Japanese crabs, which are the biggest of all arthropods (insects, spider, and shrimp fall in this category), with legs up to 13 feet (4 meters) long. There was assorted cold water fish displayed in tanks with lots of kelp. The kelp seems to be flourishing in the tanks. We have made no effort to learn about cold water fish, so we didn’t recognize any, nor do we remember many of their names.
The last exhibit was a river display, featuring assorted fresh water fishes, like piranhas. There were also Asian sea otters on display. The river display was packed with people, so we couldn’t see much and we wound up quickly leaving it.
There is also a kids area where you can touch various sea creatures, including shrimp. There are slides, jungle gyms, and a boat with a pilot house for the kids. Eric started playing in the pilot house, and Christi had to drag him out of there so the kids could use it.
Unfortunately, the photos we took of the last few displays didn’t turn out, so that is why there are no pictures from those. From the aquarium we went to the”¦.
To be continued”¦