I'll have a Filet of Fish without the fingers.

I’ll like to complain to you all about how cold and snowy it is here but then I realize that Austin is in Canada where all this cold weather was born. He has had snow and cold since September. So that didn’t work. I thought about Celeste and Brad in the middle of this week long ice storm coating everything with inch thick ice and many areas without power. Tiana, Bryce, and Danica have all had bitter snow storms and Don is probably battling dust storm along with a few bullets and hand grenades. So I dropped all my thoughts of complaining and just wanted to wish everyone a joyous and White Christmas.

Sorry to drag you all back to the Aquarium this week but yesterday I had my best adventure there yet. My partner didn’t show up for one of the freshwater tanks and so the director said go into the “Open Blue” tank and help out there. “Open Blue” is the main attraction in the largest tank with about a dozen plus sharks. At feeding time we are suppose to wear steel mesh gloves because it is dangerous and tricky. I was having a ball waving to all the kids while I was cleaning the glass and one old guy kept pointing out where I had missed spots (all in good fun). A scout troop came by and they kept beating me at rock, paper, scissors.

It came time to start feeding and the whole tank knew it. The sea turtles were the worse. They wouldn’t leave us alone. They kept bumping into us so we would feed them. They would whack us with their flippers and poke us with their head. Last year a diver almost got his finger bit off by one of the turtles so we have to be careful in defending ourselves against them. Then there is this little bamboo shark that hovers around waiting to taste the squid or fingers which ever he can grab. We would take these large bottles of squid parts and spread them around in the water to feed the dozens of hungry fish. It was like being in a hungry cloud of 5 pound butterflies with teeth. What a trip.

Then we were ready to feed the big sharks in the wide open space where they rule. I was already in trouble from wandering into the shark lane and the tiger sharks don’t like to be disturbed that way. My buddy had to warn me not to swim over there. Our task yesterday morning was to feed the saw fish and big sharks. Two divers with PVC pipes held off the hungry sharks while one diver would take a filet of fish in a two foot pincher and dangle it in front of the sawfish. The teeth on the sawfish’s beak are pointed but relatively safe except when he gets wild and swings it around, then it could break someone’s wrist. Well since I’m new I got to watch while the other divers all took their positions and as you would guess things didn’t go as planned. The sawfish took the fish filet and the reaching pincher in his mouth and wouldn’t let go. He swam off with dinner and the utensil. So the two guard divers took off into the center of the tank chasing the sawfish to get the reaching tool back. I stood guard over the rest of the meal to beat off any of the hungry sharks until they returned with the tool. Let me tell you that they are not shy about food and I can see where sharks get their reputation. The divers out in the middle of the tank forgot that they each had a fish filet in their hands and so they started to become the chased as well as chasing. Finally one diver got the tool back and we were able to complete the causal dining experience. I thought it was great fun until I saw the expression on the other diver’s faces and they had not enjoyed the experience.