It's my favorite time of year - Halloween! Each year, the Aquarium throws a party exclusively for members and their guests, called Fish, Fun & Fright. To add to the festivities, we carve a few dozen pumpkins and put the Jack-O-Lanterns into the Giant Ocean Tank around the reef with glow sticks inside. Myrtle and some of the angelfishes like it when we do this, as some of them find pumpkins tasty!
Many of the guests come in costume, so since we don't like for everyone else to have all the fun, we dive in costume in the GOT as well! It can be a bit tricky coming up with a costume that will work underwater. You have to consider the material, reduced gravity, being able to equalize your ears, entanglement, etc. We had seven unique and fun costumes this year.
Don wore a Davy Jones (from Pirates of the Caribbean) mask, which he said prevented him from seeing much of anything during his dive.
Paul, for his costume, borrowed a vest and a hardhat from Turner Construction Company, who is heading up the construction of the New Balance Foundation Marine Mammal Center (coming Summer 2009).
Andrea's idea was to incorporate the SCUBA backpack into her costume, and was a Ghostbuster.
Liz (right) was a fairy and had a lot fun casting spells on the visitors through the windows. She won 'best underwater costume', as voted by all costumed divers. I (left) dressed up as a man on the moon, and walked around weightless-like on the bottom of the tank.
Sam, arrrgh, dove in as a pirate (with a fake sword I promise), and took 2nd prize.
Happy Halloween!
-Chris
Hi Chris GREAT blog - wish I was there. BTW I used to snorkel with other from NEA at Newport collecting fish in the 1970's & 80's. Went back there about 7 years ago when my youngest son thought he wanted to be an oceanographer. At that time we set up 3 tanks; 55 gallon with collected stuff from RI, 40 gallon w/ stuff from Rockport ME, & 40 w/ commercial marine coral & fish. Now we have the commercial marine in a 125 tank & freshwater in 75 gallon. BTW I used to be a freshwater biologist for the Army Corps of Engineers, Hubbardston MA (Barre Falls) 1980 – 87. Now work DEP Air bureau in ME.
ReplyDeleteLove the costumes!
ReplyDeletebwahahahaha!!!
ReplyDeleteToo cool!
I love the moon man one. Must have looked hilariious underwater :)
Is there a chance you may be able to post more photos of our costumed friends? Maybe a separate gallery?
ReplyDeleteAlso, is the webcam down again?