Acquire a Taste for Aquariums
Photos
We live more than a thousand miles away from our grandson, a chipper lad of four who is entranced with words like “echo-location.” We aren’t the day to day grandparents, but our relationship grows and thrives through mutually interesting shared adventures, visiting the wonderful aquariums of North Carolina for example.
About 15 miles south of Wilmington, right on the Atlantic is the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher. This is an area where the rivers of the Piedmont run into the ocean. The aquarium experience begins in the Cape Fear Conservatory, a huge and humid space that feels like a movie set for some jungle flick. A fog network continually mists the plants. Are we in a rain forest?
There are ponds and waterfalls, carnivorous plants and freshwater fish. Little kids press their faces up against the transparent walls to go nose to nose with an alligator. Children learn by touch and the aquarium offers that too with hands on experiences in the coquina outcrop touch pool.
One of the starring attractions of the aquarium is a 235,000 gallon tank containing 300 creatures, all enjoying their own space. The moray eels look like something out of an art class on monsters as they leer at visitors from an undersea cave.
Our second aquarium excursion was the recently renovated North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores, five miles west of Atlantic Beach. Once again the entrance was stellar: Visitors creep around a waterfall and enter the exhibit area mentally prepared to enjoy creatures from the deep.
The day we visited there were a large number of home schoolers there too enjoying the educational programs especially formatted for their age and interests. A young lady with a microphone became the classroom teacher, helping the youngsters get even more out of the experience by answering their questions and proposing a few of her own.
The big event was watching divers enter the huge Living Shipwreck tank. Holding 306,000 gallons of water and 16 feet deep, this giant fish bowl is home to all manner of marine life including a number of huge sharks. The predators are well fed, but that doesn’t mean that occasionally a small fish won’t go missing – hard to break old habits! Many of these fish were caught in the nearby ocean and transplanted to the aquarium.
Besides the fish, the huge tank contains a three-quarter size fiberglass replica of a U-352 wreck, based on an actual German U boat sunk by the US Coast Guard cutter in 1942 off Cape Lookout. Of course the fish don’t know all that World War II history, they just see the downed boat as a great spot to raise the young’uns!
We have one more North Carolina aquarium to go, it’s located on Roanoke Island and we can hardly wait. More information is available on the web at www.ncaquariums.com.
Jerre Repass is a freelance travel writer and radio broadcaster. Her weekly travel feature, “Come Away With Me,” is heard as part of “All Things Considered” on National Public Radio.
Photos are provided by Jack Repass.
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