Volunteer divers take the plunge
Kelp Forest exhibit is kept clean during shutdown
Your standard fish tank holds 10 to 55 gallons of water and contains a handful of fish. Depending on what needs to be done, a person can clean the tank in about 45 minutes. Now compare that to the 2.3 million gallons of water in the tanks at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which hold 35,000 aquatic creatures. You’ll need help. Lots of it — from volunteer divers, who step up to the plate.
The aquarium’s doors may be closed to visitors because of the COVID-19 shutdown, but these volunteers are still on the job, plunging into the tanks three times a week to scrub the thick acrylic walls and vacuum the tank bottoms
to keep them clean.
Watsonville diver Alice Bourget has been doing this for more than 25 years, typically as part of a team of more than 100 volunteer divers. During the pandemic, about 35 active volunteers are shouldering the load.
On a recent Tuesday afternoon, Bourget and two fellow divers met with the aquarium’s divemaster — yes, the Monterey Bay Aquarium has a divemaster — to discuss the job ahead, in this case the massive Kelp Forest exhibit.
First, the wave-making device, which keeps the current circulating through the undulating kelp forest, was turned off to help keep the divers stationary in the water. Next, the large vacuum and its long hose, used to clean the tank’s bottom, were made ready.
Then Bourget and the other volunteers donned their gear and descended into the 28-foot- deep tank, one of the tallest aquatic exhibits in the world.
With a sponge in one hand, Bourget made her way to the first of the windows, using a suction cup to anchor her in position in an exhibit filled with marine life. Among them: leopard sharks, which average 4.5 feet and weigh 22 pounds, and a giant sea bass, California’s largest nearshore fish, which weighs in around 130 pounds.
For Bourget, volunteering is a way of giving back and showing gratitude to a cause she loves. And it’s not all work. Once, while cleaning the Open Seas tank, a green sea turtle wanted to play — and became such a playful pest, Bourget couldn’t finish her task. It’s not just cleaning, either. On one dive, Bourget and her dive buddy brought a huge wolf eel up for treatment, after noticing that
it had a bloated stomach, a symptom of digestive issues.
Lately, her favorite task is anything near the school of anchovies.
“I love how they move as a group and swirl about reflect
ing the sun, then split into two schools, then rejoin,” she says. “I find it mesmerizing.”
The Monterey Bay Aquarium has used volunteer divers even before it opened to the public in
1984. Bourget was smitten on her first visit there.
“I realized what a great and beautiful organization it is,” she says. “After watching the diver at the feeding show, I asked the docent how I could participate. They directed me to the volunteer office, and within a year, I became a volunteer diver.”
There is no official reopening date for the aquarium as yet, not until Monterey County coronavirus case metrics achieve the state and county thresholds that allow indoor venues such as museums and aquariums to reopen. But plans are in place for that day: Guests over age 2 will be required to wear face coverings, and the number of visitors will be capped, ensuring a low enough attendance to allow for social distancing.
Until then, you can watch the aquarium’s live webcams featuring the sea otter tank, kelp forest, bird aviary, penguins and more at www.montereybayaquarium.org.