For my 45th birthday, Chuck surprised me with a reservation to scuba dive in the main tank at the Baltimore Aquarium. If you’ve ever been to the Baltimore Aquarium, this is the monster tank that you walk down and around at the end. I used to visit this aquarium as a kid and loved visiting this tank at the end of our visit, so I was really excited to be able to get in the tank and swim around!
You arrive a couple of hours before your dive for an educational class about the aquarium and the work they’re doing there. They also go over the dive plan and tell us where certain animals like to hang out, certain areas not to disturb and other information. After the education, we were taken on a tour of the aquarium and learn about some of the other creatures. And after that, it was time to suit up.
We then headed up to the top of the tank, got our dive equipment on and in we went!
We had about 50 minutes in the tank to swim around and interact with the fish. My favorite things to do were picking up the gravel from the bottom and letting it slowly slip out of my fingers. The fish LOVE this and would come swarming around the gravel.
My other favorite thing to do was to interact with the kids that were watching. The kids there were so intrigued and amused watching us divers in the tank and would High Five the glass to us.
Overall, it was pretty cool thing to do. It wasn’t the most exciting dive I’ve done, but since I grew up loving the Baltimore Aquarium and especially that huge tank, it was a thrill to get inside of it for an afternoon.
