Awesome!

That’s the only word to describe the experience. I’m coming home with at least 2gb of photos and a video shot by the underwater videographer during the swim… it’ll probably take a couple of days to get it onto Youtube and hence mavenandmeddler.com.

This experience ranks right up there on the Wow-o-meter with some of the more ‘exciting’ airplane rides I taken - like the one that required a safety briefing on how to ride the ejection seat out - just in case.

This whale sharks are sneaky. They come right out of nowhere and zowie - there they are underneath you!

As aquariums go, the Georgia Aquarium cannot be compared to any other in the United States. The Monterey Aquarium is ‘bigger’ but only because it claims the bay as part of the aquarium. The Georgia Aquarium boasts the second largest viewing window in the world at 23 feet tall by 61 feet wide and 2 feet thick. It is only surpassed by the one in Japan, where it was crafted, by 2 inches.

I didn’t realize they could engineer acrylic glass two feet thick and have virtually no visual distortion. Amazing!.

We were taken through a thorough safety briefing by one of the divers, and then sent to change. Once in our wetsuits and out on the deck, the dive team helped us gear up with small tanks and regulators - and onto the dock we went. Into 6.3 million gallons of sea water with the worlds largest fish.

They really know how to do this event right, from the beginning. Everything was ready and waiting for our small group of four - right down to a locker with our name on it, with fluffy towels and our wetsuits and booties at the ready. Afterward, while we were taken on a behind the scenes tour the video editor was hard at work getting our DVDs ready for the showing back in the briefing room with our family and friends. Ron was escorted though the glass tunnels and viewing windows by one of the other divers, Eric, who put him in the right place at the right time to ‘meet up’ with me. Eric did a lot of that photography for Ron and it’s looking great.

It was so surprising that we could clearly see our family and friends 50 feet below through acrylic tunnel and windows.

The new tiger sharks, bonnethead sharks and Nandi the Manta Ray were the icing on the cake.

Nandi is the first manta ray to ever be in a United States aquarium, making Georgia Aquarium one of only four aquariums in the world to house them. Nandi was rescued from shark nets off the coast of Durban, South Africa and rehabilitated by uShaka Marine World, the largest marine park in Africa. She has lived in uShaka for the past year, educating and inspiring conservation in more than 500,000 people. Manta rays are the largest rays in the sea, but Nandi was very young and small when she was rescued at just eight feet across. In just one year, she doubled in weight and outgrew her 580,000 gallon exhibit. In order to raise world-wide awareness about manta rays, Georgia Aquarium and uShaka created an international partnership to bring Nandi on a 9,000-mile journey from South Africa to her new 6.3 million gallon home in the world’s largest exhibit, Ocean Voyager.

Many, many years ago when Marco Island, Florida was still devoid of condos, I would swim with Manta Rays in the bay at night. So this was, indeed a rare treat. Rays are one of my favorites for their sheer elegance of ‘flight’.

If you should decide to come visit the Georgia Aquarium, plan on an entire day here. It’s just that extensive and fascinating- with a heavy emphasis on awareness of the oceans as an irreplaceable natural resource and conservation. The divers have cured me of my taste for Florida Grouper. They’re on the brink of being completely overfished.

Do make this a vacation destination and visit. Well worth it.