Diving at the Aquarium

Episode Transcript
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Erin Lundy (00:06):
Hi, I'm Erin Lundy.

Madeline Walden (00:07):
And I'm Madeline Walden and this is
Aquarium of the Podcific. Apodcast brought to you by
Aquarium of the Pacific,Southern California's largest
aquarium.

Erin Lundy (00:15):
Join us as we learned alongside the experts in
animal care, conservation andmore.

Welcome back to Aquarium of the Podcific.

Erin Lundy (00:25):
I'm Erin Lundy, conservation coordinator for
mammals and birds and AnimalCare Specialist and

I'm Madeline Walden, the aquariums digital
content and community manager.Today we are learning all about
diving at the aquarium. Erin,have you ever dove at the
aquarium before? Yeah.

Erin Lundy (00:39):
It historically it was part of my job. Not as much
recently there's frog habitatstend to dive deep enough to need
that. But when I was primarily aMarine Mammal Care keeper,
caretaker, caregiver, mygoodness when I was at the mall,
primarily to care for marinemammal collection. One of the

(01:01):
things that people don't realizeis that diving is how we clean
their house. Yeah, and we have avacuum like an underwater
vacuum. vacuuming up all thethings that are

be needed to be vacuum. Food goes in

Erin Lundy (01:15):
food comes out. Yeah. And the best thing about
diving in with our seals and sealions other than getting a
chance to see how massive theylook underwater is sometimes you
get to find a little whiskersand it's Oh, they have really
got his crush on harbor sealwhiskers when you find them are
different than California.Sealine whiskers, California
Ceylon whiskers look like aspaghetti like a dry spaghetti.

(01:36):
My hardware still whiskers arethe cutest thing ever, because
they have this spiral structureall around. And that makes them
more sensitive to water currentsflowing over them and helps them
understand the surrounding. Sothat's the best part about
diving in with the seals and sealions. But treasure Yeah, all
the treasure you find it

within the poop. That's awesome. Well, I am
currently in the process oflearning how to scuba dive. And
I'm really excited to get intoour exhibits because it just it
seems so magical. I can't wait.I haven't

Erin Lundy (02:05):
been in a lot of our exhibits. I've been in our sea
otter habitat. I've been inpenguins. I've been in our seals
and sea lions, but our DSORachel gets to do all of it and
then some and then also gets toteach people how to dive in all
of those different habitats. SoMadeline's scuba certification
is going to allow us to doTikToks from inside and see fish

(02:29):
real close. Rachel is our divesafety officer also known as a
DSO. And she's worked at theaquarium for quite some time.
And we're very lucky to have herit is not easy diving. Diving is
super technical, can bedangerous,

so much safety protocols that she has to manage
and really be thinking about theentire time that she's working,
and probably when she's notworking, honestly, who doesn't

Erin Lundy (02:50):
think a lot of brainspace when they're not
working. But she is wonderful,and she is one of the most
enthusiastic and sweet DSOs thatwe could ever ask for. So
without further ado, let's haveRachel.

Rachel, thank you so much for joining us on
the podcast today.

Rachel Cushman (03:05):
Hi, good afternoon. So happy to be here.

Yay. Can you tell us a little bit about your
job here at the Aquarium? Howlong have you been here?

Yeah, do so. Um, I am the dive safety officer of
aquarium operations. I have beenhere for about 11 and a half
years. Really? Yes. So I startedwhen I was 20 years old. And I
remember getting the call that Igot the job and I laid back on
my bed and I thought all of myworries that I've ever had in my

(03:32):
life are solved. I got a job inscuba diving, which is kind of a
hard thing to do. You know, it'sa luxury sport. It's super fun.
You know, everybody wants to youknow, scuba dive at the Aquarium
of the Pacific Yeah. And getpaid to do it. And so and so
that's what I'm that's what Ido. But more so actually, I
manage all the people that arediving at the Aquarium of the

(03:53):
Pacific, I don't actually get inthe water as much as I would
like to. But I certainly do getin to do some trainings or to to
do some fun stuff or somespecial events. But mainly what
I am in charge of is making surethat the dive program is being
conducted in a safe manner thatall of the equipment is safe and
in good condition and looks niceand pretty. And I onboard all of

(04:16):
the volunteer scuba divers andmanage all of the diving that
goes on day to day in theexhibits. One One of a team of
six people that are all paidemployees and everybody else
that you see that's diving inthe exhibits. They either staff
members and aquarists orvolunteers. Yeah, awesome.

Well, let's talk a little bit about your
career or just your life beforethe aquarium have. How long have
you been diving for?

So I'm super lucky. I grew up locally here. I
grew up like in Seal Beach andmy dad got me into scuba diving
right when I turned 12 yearsold, which is the absolute
youngest you can possibly be Iknew that I wanted to breathe
underwater ever since I had amermaid Barbie. You know then
scuba diver Barbie in thebathtub or what have you. And so

(05:01):
I was um I grew up going toCatalina with my family and
snorkeling and that super, supercold water and only really
wanted to do was fly underneaththe surface. And so I got
certified on my 12th birthday.It was it was so fun and since
then I've had some additionaltrainings I did an ROP class in
high school as a senior where Igot to go to a different high

(05:23):
school and get some more scubatraining. ROP Yeah, what does
that ROP I think? What does itstand for? It's like, second
extracurricular class, itallowed me to get a pathway cord
in high school. Oh, that's athing. So got a marine biology
pathway chord. And so then Iwent to school, I went to school
at Cal State Long Beach, I gotmy degree in marine biology, my

(05:43):
Bachelor of Science and all thewhile I mean really I started
working here when I was 20. Andso all of my previous dive
training kind of came in my teenyears. And then all of the more
additional training that havegotten like divemaster and
instructor has been while beenwhile I've been here at the
Aquarium so my experience divingfor a long time, as well as I

(06:08):
was a junior lifeguard so Ispent a lot of time in the ocean
for really helped me get the jobthe initial administration job
here for the dive program. Andthen I've been growing and
crawling up the ladder slowlyever since I mean, swimming up
the ladder. It's a ladder. Nosee my little crab like little
crab, you know, going up ladderand a big wave comes and we call

(06:29):
that COVID. Bottom rock right?Start all over.

Erin Lundy (06:33):
It's funny that I was like, oh, real life mermaid
you're like I'm a little crabworking my way up.

Can you kind of give a rundown on what is a dive
master? What are kind of thelevels that you have to go
through to get to where you arenow. Okay, yeah,

no, great question. So, um, if you've
never been scuba diving before,you can get yourself in the
water in two ways. You can trysomething called like a discover
dive, where you go to a diveshop and say, hey, I want you to
take me scuba diving, I justwant to get underwater in the
ocean as quickly as I can andwill do. They'll teach you how
to do it, you can do it onetime. If you want to be able to

(07:11):
do it yourself, when you go onvacation somewhere else is like
I know how to do this and I wantto do it here, then you would
need a certification. The firstlevel is an Open Water Diver
certification, it takes abouttwo to three weeks, there's some
pool work, there's some oceanwork, and you're gonna get that
done with a some with aninstructor that's at a dive shop
near you somewhere and thatshops are everywhere. They're

(07:32):
not only near the ocean, they'redefinitely inland as well,
certainly, oh yeah. So justGoogle a dive shop near you. And
there will be an instructor thatcan teach you something. So once
you get your basic open watercertification, that is by far
the hardest part. You also don'tneed to own your own gear in
order to get that certification,you can rent the gear, I highly
recommend it because not only isthe gear expensive, storing it

(07:55):
is even more expensive. And soit's kind of delicate, too.
Yeah, you know, it's finallywanted

to maintain

you, you don't want to buy your own gear until
you love doing this. You'redoing it every month, you know,
and so um, so you rent the gear,get yourself open water
certified. And if you do trulylove it, there are tons of dive
clubs that are just you know,recreational people that want to
go diving and figure out whenthey can all find the time to do
it. And so that's how you findyour dive buddies because you
never want to go diving alone.After that, there are a couple

(08:27):
other levels. There's anadvanced diver, which you do, I
believe it's like five specialtydives. We do like a night diving
or navigation or boat diving,just more specialty things that
make you in advance that usuallytakes about one weekend. Then
you take another weekend and youcan get your rescue diver
certification, which teaches younot only how to rescue someone
from the water, but moreimportantly, how to think so

(08:49):
that you prevent a rescue fromever needing to happen. And so
it's a lot of just situationalawareness training. So that's a
rescue diver certification. Thatis the certification that is
required for all of ourvolunteer divers. So it's
technically the third level ofcertification. But so yeah, but
the first one always takes themost amount of time, energy and
effort was the open water one.So after you get your rescue

(09:13):
diver certification, you canbecome a professional level
level diver, which means youbecome a what they call a dive
master Master. Master you know,which isn't to be confused with
Master diver. Oh, that is sodarn confusing. So a master
diver is a certification. It'skind of like an advanced diver.
Okay, but even better, okay. Andso it's like someone who's like

(09:34):
good at like researching anddoing this doing that. A Dive
Master is different because it'ssomebody that's overseeing other
divers that you're seeing iskind of like a leader. So that's
what we call when the diverworld splits off into
professional level diving versusjust recreational mass. A master
scuba diver, which is more kindof recreational who's got lots

(09:54):
of skills. Okay. A Dive Masteris someone that can To oversee
new students that are getcertified, and dive masters
usually help instructors, whichis the next level certify
students. So that at the verytop level there is the
instructor shirt as theinstructor, their assistant is
usually a dive master divemasters are also responsible for

(10:16):
taking certified divers intoenvironments that they haven't
been before. So it's a it's likea new dive site and Palau or
something higher, you'd want tohire a dive master to take you
because you've never beenbefore. And that's just we
learned in our rescue class notsafe to do.

Erin Lundy (10:30):
I think that people don't always get that diving is
this incredibly technical thingthat requires so much training
and so once you equipment andalthough a lot of it, I'm sure
comes naturally to you. Now,there's a lot of work that goes
into receiving your divecertification. And I remember I
had to go through all of thatwhen I was getting hired at the
Aquarium of the Podcificlisteners, I didn't actually

(10:51):
have my dive certification whenI applied. And I said that I
did. And then they asked me foran interview. And I had to get
it really fast. I don't thinkeven my boss knows that. So I'm
sorry.

Confession time.

Erin Lundy (11:06):
I was very fortunate in that I had a very close
friend of mine who was a diveinstructor and was like, we'll
get like, it'll be fine. Justapply for the job. And if it
comes up, we'll do it reallyfast. And so I was able to get
my certification. But it stilltook me a couple of weeks and
then just getting my like littlecertification card took a while
and they asked for a copy of it.And I was like, um, just give me

(11:28):
and definitely the date on Ihave been in the ocean before.
So everyone who is wondering Iactually got certified
specifically for this job. Andif you work at the aquarium, you
actually have to have at leastan open water certification.
Right?

You work with animals or you're working on.

Erin Lundy (11:43):
Oh, no. I get this job. You are open water
certified now.

I am. I'm getting there. I'm close to
working on and we're working onit. Yes. I'm really excited.
She's

doing great.

Erin Lundy (11:53):
That's awesome. Are you helping her with it?

You know, I saw her I didn't actually do any of
the instructing or divemastering I was just say, I'm
was a bystandard watching. Andshe's an all star you can really
tell there's some people thatare meant to scuba dive. Yeah,
there's some people that arejust better

on land and the water sign is better on

Erin Lundy (12:11):
land person, but it was required for the show. So I
am like a little recentlymorphed tadpole to Frog where
I'm just like, I don't know notunderstand what's No, I'm not a
crab. Rachel's a crab climbingup the ladder. I am the useless
half frog. All that stuff.Between my land and my water. I

don't really know you're in the middle of
evolution. Yeah, I'm

Erin Lundy (12:31):
working on it. Don't worry about it. But yeah, so I
mean, it takes a lot of work toget certified for diving. And
it's definitely can be reallydangerous to like what aspects
of your job sort of involvedsafety or dive safety officer?
What does that mean in terms ofkeeping everyone safe?

A lot of people when they look at the aquarium,
they think that it's just onebig pool? How dangerous could it
possibly be diving in a pool? Imean, in the ocean, obviously,
it's dangerous. But even whenyou're training, you go into a
pool? Well, first I'd like tocorrect people and tell them
imagine it's more of a Jacuzziinstead of a pool, because there
are so many darn jets that arepumping water down there, that
you're getting pushed from oneside of the exhibit to the

(13:05):
other. So it feels a little bitmore like diving in a Jacuzzi.
There's glass structures,there's overhead environment,
there's Yeah, acrylic glassthat's easily easily scratched
by scuba tanks. There's someoverhead environments, there are
animals that are that behaveuniquely because they are, you

(13:27):
know, here are unique, and theyare not scared of you when
you're the one who has beenfeeding them for the past, you
know, years. And so all of that,you know really comes into play
is because a lot of what we'redoing isn't just hanging out in
the water waving at people. Mostof the time, nine times out of
10 we have a plethora of tasksthat we're doing that we're

(13:49):
thinking about our number onemost important task being to
make sure that we're checking onbuddy, the entire time that
we're diving here. You know, ouraverage age of dive volunteer is
over the age of 40. And so andthey're underwater quite a bit.
I mean, last year, we know prepandemic, we we were logging
over 20,000 times a year. Wow.And so if you think about that

(14:11):
the sheer amount of time peopleare underwater, and doing hard
tasks like cleaning and feedingand watching their buddy and
kicking around against thecurrent. There's just a lot of
little things that when addedtogether could create a big
problem. And so it's my job tomake sure that those little
things are managed effectively.We can't prevent all potential

(14:35):
dangers from happening, youknow, but we can see how they
add up we can have like supersituational global awareness and
see just what are all the littleaspects that can make something
go wrong on a dive even down toyou know, someone a bit
congested today. You know, whenI'm talking to one of the
volunteers, they soundcongested, does that mean that

(14:55):
one of them was going to blowthe eardrum because they're not
being able to clear their earsunderwater because of the
pressure or maybe that's part ofthe state, you know, and that
safety even right there. Soit's, it's being aware of the
things we know that arehappening, things that might not
be a big deal, but our little,but it's all of those kind of
little things that create a bigproblem that we try to figure
out how we can nip in the bud.

Erin Lundy (15:15):
Yeah, our dive program seems extremely well
organized. And on the back ofevery exhibit that is approved
for diving, there's a dive planthat says, Hey, these are the
approved, I have plans for thisexhibit. And it is very
specific. And it is for everysingle exhibit that is drivable.
And I just saw our new data. Sochecking out all of those di
plans the other day and gettingfamiliar with them, because

(15:36):
there's so much that goes intokeeping things organized and
safe and making sure people aredoing the things that they're
supposed to. And so I can'timagine how much thought and
structure goes into creatingsomething like that. So thank
you.

Yeah, it's got to be so much work and so much,
you know, mental checklists thatyou're constantly keeping track
of

There's over I think there's over 50 exhibits
that we dive in well, and so andyou will, you'll see the dive
officers were constantly walkingaround looking at things people
laugh at me, they say, you knowthat a lot of people laugh and
say that I'm always staring at awall. Or like, I never know what
you're looking at just yourhands around your hips, and
you're staring at the wall, justwhat are you thinking about? And
most of the time, I'm thinkingabout how would I risk? How

(16:16):
would I would get someone out ofthe situation if they needed to
happen? You know, if just forsome reason today was that
person's day that they neededhelp? How would I get them out
of this exhibit? I wouldn't getthem up onto that rock.

I like that you said that. Because I will say
like, you are a very, like,outgoing personality, very
extroverted, I see you aroundthe aquarium, you're always
willing to chat. But there aresome times I see very, like
hyper focused, and I see likeAriana, and I'll be like, Hey,
Rachel, you're like, hey, andlike, like, you're higher in it.
And that's, that's your job. Youknow, it's doing that mental

(16:49):
work and like making sure like,you know, I have to look at this
exhibit and consider allopportunities and all, you know,
all ways that Yeah, anythingcould happen and how would we
respond to that? Yeah, yeah,like even the other day, you
were um, I was recording onTikTok. So, you know, just
looking ridiculous. Rachel comesin and she's and she's trying to

(17:09):
get the attention. And when thedivers and there's, you know, a
communication back and forth,yes, have you have hand signals
you have, you know, things thatyou need to get done in the
exhibit. They're trying tocommunicate, you know, on dry
land versus so, like, it's veryfocused. And it's, it's got to
be it's a lot of work.

Yeah, it's funny you say that because that's
where my extroverted nestsreally comes out is what I'm
trying to communicate to a diverbehind the glass. You know,
trying to get their attentionfirst of all, you know, you
don't want to slam you don'twant to pound on the glass. You
don't really hear it anyway,once you're in there. Like
unless your head is right nextto the glass, you really don't
hear anything. And so trying todo jumping jacks or whatever,

(17:42):
you know, what might blonde hairaround just any kind of
confusing I've since stoppeddoing so much of that because I
have learned in my job how to bebetter at being patient and just
telling them the informationthat they need them to know
later. That's a big learningcurve for me is that they don't
need to know everything rightnow. Let's just talk about it
next time. But yeah, talking tothem and getting they're getting
their attention by doing thejumping jacks and trying to

(18:05):
figure out some kind of handsignal to tell them please don't
clean that one coral. I want thecoral that's to two inches away
from it, not that one. And sohow did how to find the hand
signals to communicate that canbe kind of challenging.

Erin Lundy (18:20):
Well, there's a lot of exhibits here and there's a
lot of divers and volunteerdivers but for you what exhibits
Have you dived in and out of allof our exhibits? What's your
favorite?

I've done most of these in is that I actually
haven't dove in all of them.That was always been something
on my list. Every single Yeah,you know the surge West channel
the surge west stuff. Where doyou Surge east: done surge West
when the far one and the surgeand that's the one that I'm
always staring out thinking Iwas like, get anybody out of
that one.

Erin Lundy (18:48):
Have you been in Hellbenders? Because that one
needs to be dove

isn't only like three feet deep? Yeah, okay.

Erin Lundy (18:58):
Probably a stand up meridian situation.

Now, I'm excited to get in. I'm really excited to
get in some of the new exhibits.Oh, yeah, they're gonna be
opening in the SouthernCalifornia Baja gallery. I
cannot wait seeing some of thosebehind the scenes. I'm just
like, get me in there.

Yeah, on an upcoming episode, we're going to
talk about our new gallery. I'mreally excited to dive in. I
just

Erin Lundy (19:19):
spent like half an hour to an hour this morning
helping put sand in one of ournew eelgrass tanks. Oh, yes.
Thanks. So that'll be really funto see. And I'm sure it'll be
fun to dive because it's solong. Swim. Yeah,

I can tell you probably my least favorite one
is unfortunately probably thepenguins just because of the
smell lingers if you don't, ifyou don't wear a full face mask,
and it's the wrong time of yearyou get that water up your nose
and you smell penguin for thenext two days. Yeah, and either
molting
too, that's

probably the time of year which is about to
happen. We talked a little bitabout With that in the penguin
episode really

any bet Okay, so I really dive in there is gonna
have a

real stinky real quick because I'm not going
in the water very often

and they get stinky they wet with the water
gets stinky apparently so thatthat that scent has stuck with
me for a while just because Icouldn't figure out how to get
it out of my nasal cavity.

Erin Lundy (20:21):
Have you been in there since we redid that
exhibit?

No. Okay, I haven't actually been in the
water yet. I

Erin Lundy (20:26):
think they made some modifications to make it more
dive friendly. Typically,stinky. Yeah,

maybe less slippery.

Erin Lundy (20:35):
But the idea of like, you know, when we're
redesigning an exhibit, how canwe incorporate things that make
it safer for people who have toget in and out of the water and
actually loved that that was apretty big consideration when
they were doing it.

That's a huge it's such a big deal. You know?
So yes, probably paying this ismy least fair. But my, my most
favorite, which, you know, butthe penguins are cute. I wish
they would come up to me and Ithink and so therefore I feel
like there's I feel like I'm thestinky one. Instead of them
being the stinky one. So I don'tget any lovin and I leave

(21:07):
stinky. It's a lose lose.

Erin Lundy (21:09):
Like there's penguins 30 feet away from me
and I smell terrible.

Not ideal. So my favorite one has got to be blue
cavern, though because I meandiving inside a building. Diving
in a two story exhibit inside abuilding is pretty awesome.
Because, you know, it's funny,you said earlier that you know
people are like, Oh, you're likea real life mermaid and I
consider myself a water fairy.

Erin Lundy (21:33):
Because Okay, I'm sorry.

I like to say this because for me, the reason
why I love scuba diving so muchis because it reminds me of I
feel like I'm flying. It's apseudo flying station. For me,
you're like way up there. Right?Exactly. And so sometimes I'm
actually not really a big likehiker, because it goes somewhere
beautiful. And I see a beautifultree and I just really want to
go up and look at that leaf.It's at the very top, and I

(21:56):
can't because I'm above waterand not under it. And super
disappointing definitely changeshow you like take in nature. And
so when I get to go into bluecavern, and I'm a first on the
bottom of the exhibit, talk tothe kids on the bottom and then
just a little push in a kick andnow I'm at the bridge and I get
to like wave at the people thatare on the bridge like I
actually feel like I am midairin the middle of a great hall so

(22:19):
and that's a feeling that likethe little five year old in me.
And so that's I mean that's myfavorite part of the job was
that feeling that I get?

I'm surprised you're one of your favorite
exhibits to dive in is onethat's relatively chillier than
a lot of our other exhibits.That's a cold water habitat

it's not the cold air that's the coldest as I
said I don't go into surge sirjust like like to coordinate
right? 40 to 50. But um, bluecavern's about 50 between like
56 to 60. It usually fluctuatesthroughout the year. It is
chilly. It mimics what'sactually happening in the open
ocean. Right off our coast here.Yeah. But it is. But it's easier

(22:58):
to acclimate and that in this 58Then I'd say the academy than 58
actually out in Catalina becausethe circular for some reason.
It's just it doesn't stay socold so long. But I can say that
like there have been times whereI've had to be a safety diver
for some like event dive wherethey were in the water for like
an hour

Erin Lundy (23:18):
exhibit is based off of a blue cavern dive site.
Right. And you said that's likeCatalina? Yeah. Have you been
there? Have you seen it?

Yes. Yeah, I gotta compare it. You know, the
Blue Cavern, and Catalina. Sothe blue cat, the real blue
cavern dive site and Catalina ison the side that's facing the
mainland. Okay, and it's nearthe isthmus, which is the skinny
skinny low part of the island.So if you're on the beach here,

(23:45):
like in LA, and you're lookingthat way, it's going to be like,
very much like basically a hairto the left side of this skinny
little isthmus part, that'sbasically we're blue cavern is.
So you can look at it from theshore. It is it's a pretty deep
dive the cavern itself and soyou go down, I think you go down
about like 85 to 90 feet, wow.All the way down. So it gets

(24:07):
pretty like cold and dark downthere. And when you're in
California, 90 feet and youknow, in Fiji feels like it
could be 10 feet, but 90 feethere in California is feels like
900 feet. So you get down 90feet, and there's this big hole
in the rock. It's probably aboutthe size of this. This room,
it's a few car length of citystack, maybe four cars on top of

(24:29):
each other probably fit fitinside. And it's just like this
big hole and you get to go andswim into this hole and it's
creepy and there's nothingreally in there except for like
gorgonians and it's for likethese big sea fans and stuff.
Blow your bubbles and come onright out. Yeah. Which actually
does mimic what the real bluecavern which is pardon me our
exhibit looks like kind of so ifyou're looking at our exhibit in

(24:51):
the far left corner, it lookslike there's this dark hole and
that is kind of what the DarkHole kind of looks like in blue
covered my favorite part though,about that day. I have in the
open ocean though is because youand usually the group that
you're with are in this hole forso long, you're blowing bubbles
blowing bubbles blowing bubbles.Well, those bubbles get trapped
up in this hole, which is about80 feet underwater. The cool

(25:15):
part is that once you're donediving deep, and you're going to
finish your dive a little bitshallower you come up on top of
where this rocky hole was. Andall of those bubbles that you
had just blown out are nowtrying to find their way to the
surface. So they find a waythrough tiny little cracks. And
when you come up to do the restof your dive in the shallow,
sunnier beautiful, you know,where there's all this kelp and

(25:37):
sun and beautiful things.There's also a whole bunch of
tiny little champagne bubblesthat are coming up that are
sparkling and it feels likeyou're just diving through pixie
dust. That is so cool. Andthat's what really makes the
Blue Cavern dive magical in myopinion. That's

so cool. That's amazing. Okay, well, you talked
a little bit about you know,you're getting into habitats
here and our entire dive team,including our volunteers, you're
getting into habitats or you'renot just swimming, you're not
just getting in there for funseats and you know, just hanging
out. What are you guys doing inthere? What what is the typical
dive look like?

So we do a few different things. Um, one of our
big things that we do sudo aptfor things first thing is
cleaning. We are constantlycleaning the exhibits people ask
like, oh, how often do you haveto go in and clean algae every
day? Every day we can get inthere every day I caught the war
on algae because it will neverend. And so we're constantly are
waiting. There are definitelywhen he especially now it's

(26:31):
summertime. Oof, they haverestocked Yes, definitely. So on
the exhibits to get more sunduring the summertime those get
needs to be cleaned twice asoften. Um, and we use hand
scrubbing brushes, electric handscrubbing brushes, we have also
big power washer poweredscrubbing brushes, which are
super heavy and hardcore. So wedo lots lots of scrubbing all

(26:55):
the time. We also have even somelike smaller brushes for like
the nuts and craning is we haveto clean the windows constantly,
every single day, truthfully.And then another thing that we
do is feed the animals so in alot of our so in a few of our
exhibits, especially our bigones are tropical reef and blue
cavern, we hand feed theanimals. So spoiled, spoiled.

(27:17):
Yeah, we just like feed with onlike a silver platter. No, I'm
kidding. Basically, though, buttruthfully, if we were to just
throw all of the food at thesurface of the water and let the
animals come in and get it, someof our animals wouldn't get any
food because just our faster,smaller, more agile animals
would come and get all the food.And truthfully, the bigger
animals like the grouperwouldn't probably wind up

(27:37):
getting a piece because they'rejust not very fast. That's not
they don't get their food fromthe surface of the water in the
open ocean. So they'll just lettheir friends get this food from
the surface of the ocean, andthey'll just get their friend
later. So in order to preventthat from happening, we have
divers that get in the water andhand feed those bigger, slower
animals. And we make sure thatthey get the appropriate amount

(27:59):
of food, we document how manypieces that they got, if they
had a specific type ofmedication that's put into a
specific fish that they need toeat, we note that as well. So
feeding happens every day hereas well, whether it's in a
couple of different exhibits.Um, so that's the second thing
we do. Third thing we do is,some of us do presentations

(28:20):
underwater. So we do talk to ourguests using an underwater full
face mask and communicationsystems, giving into our
presentations for the BlueCavern and Trop Reef. And then
lastly, but probably our mostimportant job that people don't
know about is to be the generalobservers of the exhibit. So
even these big exhibits thathave 1000s of fish in them only

(28:41):
have maybe two people that arereally the aquarists that are in
charge of that exhibit. So asyou know, 90 volunteer divers
that are coming in every singleweek, they serve as 90 pairs of
eyes for to see if things arequote unquote, not normal. And
so it takes a while for thosevolunteers to know what normal

(29:02):
looks like. It's usually prettyfunky. Like but you know, I
don't know how many people youknow how I like to ask people
how many people have a dog howmany people have a normal dog
normal cat you know, you need toin this room zero exactly. You
spend enough time with theanimal to know what normal is.

(29:23):
So when they stopped doing thatone super weird thing that they
always do you know that that'snot normal. And so the fish are
the exact same way they have somuch personality. Individually
different animals of the sameexact species behave very
differently. You would I neverknew I grew up with a fish tank
forever but I never really knewhow much a fish is like your

(29:43):
your cat or your dog or your forbird hardcore personalities and
so knowing what normal lookslike and documenting that if we
see something that appears to beoff because once it becomes
obvious that something's offsafe like an animal is changing
color something or is andhappier. It's just if it's if
it's very obvious, then usuallyit's, it's, it's bad news. So we

(30:06):
try to find it when it's not soobvious, which is usually
behavioral change.

So you're the dive team is so a part of our
husbandry team as well, you guysare so intertwined because you
are observing the animals fromright in their face right
underwater. And I think it'sreally fascinating to getting to
see, like an exhibit liketropical reef where there's over
1000 animals, it's 350,000gallons, it's our largest
exhibit. There's some animalsthat are target trained and fed

(30:31):
by Aquarist at the top. But atthe same time, there's so much
choreography underwater, thatyou guys aren't doing scatter
feeds, and you guys are feedingindividual animals and feeding
like our stingrays under there.I just think it's so cool that,
you know, we're all able to worktogether for the health and
safety of our incredibleanimals, we

call it coordinated chaos.

To watch do and you guys make it look, you make
it look so seamless. Like as youknow, if you go to a dive show
here at the Aquarium, theyhappen daily in blue cat in our
Honda blue cavern and tropicalreef exhibits. It is so
seamless. And I know there's somuch work that goes into it to
make it seamless and probably toyou like, if you only knew you
only knew. But you guys may youguys are so caring about the

(31:14):
animals. And we're so lucky tohave you know, volunteers,
people who volunteer their timeto get in there and do hard
work. It's not it's like, like Isaid, they're not just in their
swimming, as much as fun as thatwould be. But those animals
require constant care andconstant cleaning. You know,

some of the hardest work is really like I
love our mission statement somuch to instill a sense of
wonder, respect and stewardshipfor the Pacific Ocean, its
inhabitants and ecosystems. Andit's some of the hardest work
for us is making sure it'sremembering that mission
statement and making sure thatwe are teaching appropriate
stewardship of our animals andour environment. It's a big

(31:49):
thing for us divers, and whatthe Aquarium of the Pacific
believes in is teaching goodstewardship. You know, that can
come off a little I have toexplain that to some volunteers,
because they might think that,you know, they're trying to
convince one of the guests thatthis leopard shark isn't going
to bite them. So they're in thateffort, they might try to pet

(32:11):
the shark or rub it on its bellyor you know, do something that
makes the shark seem less scaryto show the guest. Instead of
trying to do things like that wehave to we have to not do those
things, we have to actually showthe animal the respect that it
deserves. And show the gueststhat that's not something that's
appropriate to do. We can't wewant you to fall in love with

(32:33):
the shark and not think it'sscary. But we also don't want
you hugging the shark. Becausewe don't want you going to
respect it. Exactly, you know.And so even when it comes to
like how we are diving aroundthe coral, you know, we want to
make sure that we're not puttingyour knees on the coral, or you
know, on the rock work, or we'renot grabbing a coral head when
we're moving ourselves around. Imean, the secret is secret info

(32:55):
is in a lot of our duyvilexhibits, all the coral is
artificial. But we have to makesure that we're showing the
guests How would you normallybehave if this wasn't
artificial? And again, inJacuzzi that can

Erin Lundy (33:08):
be really hard. flowing around.

That's something I've never considered
before. Yeah, I've never gone toa dive show and seen you guys
sitting on a piece of coral oryou know, kind of hanging off of
it. And like that would beprobably very fun to do. But
yeah, you're right stewardship,you don't want to show someone
this is supposed to mimic anocean an open water ocean
habitat. You wouldn't do that inthe in the wild. So we wouldn't
do that here.

Right? People don't watch other people in the
ocean people don't you know,when you were watching all of
our fun documentary videos thesedays, you know, when you were
watching a video about Hawaii,we're usually not watching
people snorkeling or watchingpeople diving in the water. And
so people don't know how they'resupposed to interact with the
environment itself, not just theanimals, just the environment

(33:51):
itself. And so I think thatthat's kind of an important
thing that I have to, we have toremind our volunteers often is,
you know, just just think aboutit from the perspective of our
guest and some of our guestsmembers that maybe don't have as
much of a relationship with theocean and are trying to find
that relationship. So

Erin Lundy (34:09):
I think I love dive culture so much is about leaving
things as they are or you know,if there's trash, picking it up
and making things better for theocean. And it's so much about
that sort of mutual respect thatyou have with the ocean and its
inhabitants and ecosystems andjust making sure you're not
disrupting the processes thatare going on. That being said,
our animals here at the Aquariumdon't know that that's what

(34:30):
you're doing. And so do you everend up with any weird animal
interactions on their end comingup to you?

Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
Please tell Oh, gosh.
Let's see. Well, I like day today right? Yes, today I'm
probably our is our green seaturtle in our tropical reef
exhibit.

Copper is a celebrity he really is

Erin Lundy (34:51):
This is copper is it? Celebrity
troublemaker right he's

got So much personality. He likes to really
get in our personal space asdivers. I mean, you're usually
when you see a party like, Oh,how cute. Let me be within 10
feet of you. Let me let me justbe near you, you know. And now
these guys, you'll be trying toput your fins on in the water
and this green sea turtle islike a human let me be near you
just his face opens right infront of yours in though in the

(35:22):
water. And it's again, it'stempting to not want to just hug
him because he's right there.But again, respectfully, he
needs to he needs respectful ofyour space.

Stewardship with the humans as well

Erin Lundy (35:34):
as he's really getting roasted on this podcast.

Yeah, he loved I swear he just loves the
attention.

Erin Lundy (35:39):
I think that sort of leads us to one of our social
media questions that we've hadis do the animals ever go
towards the entrance or exits ofthe water when you're diving in
there? Because they know peoplecome in and out of those spaces.
Sounds like copper, maybe.

Most of the animals when we're going in the
water, they come towards us theonly one, the only ones that
don't are noticeably are theSharks. Sharks really don't want
anything to do with this. I liketo say that sharks, their
behavior very much resembles aferal cat. And I say that
because there's lots of feralcats around here at the jetty at

(36:13):
the aquarium. And so you know,like when you see a feral cat
and bolt, you take one steptowards it, because you like,
oh, Katie, and it's just gone.Yes. Right. But then like two
minutes later, you look to yourleft hand side, and it's sharing
it the whole time and you'relike, hey, you were over there,
how are you there and then youtake another step towards it,
and then it's gone. Like that isvery much in my opinion, like

(36:37):
Shark energy is like they arevery curious and they want to
know what you're doing. So theywill be they will hang out. But
the second you start kind ofshowing any interest in them.
They're still out there. super

fascinating. So

it's like that same kind of curious, strong
energy as a little aristocat

We actually had another question about diving
with Shark we talked to RachelMunson about, you know, diving
with sharks inside of sharklagoon. And how you know, that's
something that people probablyask you a lot about, like, do
you dive with sharks? Isn't thatterrifying?

It's the most boring dive. I swear is by far
the most boring thing. So far,all of our divers, you're like,
I want to dive shark lagoon. Iwant to get your glue certified.
I want to drive shark and thenthey do and they're like, that's
like, super boring. Like I toldyou, it's the most boring guy
but like do because they don'twant nothing to do with you. And

(37:30):
then we're in there and we haveour sticks. We have like six
there's just chuck bouncers,bouncers. Yeah,

Erin Lundy (37:35):
some sweet zebra sharks and there's, you know,

the cutest Hey, Rachel. Yeah, yeah, that's
awesome.

So the I know the shotgun tank is very, it's
it's really, really mellow. Weused to be able to hand feed the
leopard sharks and blue cavern,which was fun when we hand feed
them because of their mouthshape is meant to crush like,
it's like crushing plates.They're not like serrated teeth.
And so it's kind of like,because they eat like clams and
stuff. And their mouth is on thebottom of their body. And so we

(38:06):
would just like hold up a clamcup in her hand, and they would
just like eat it out of our handlike kibble that was super fun.
They really gave me some likepuppy vibe.

Erin Lundy (38:15):
They do have kind of a puppy face. Yeah, they really
are cute.

They do.

I had another question about a specific animal
that I hear a lot about. It'skind of famous. I want to talk
about Bubbles the bat fish.

Yes, bat fish are also called a golden spade
fish. Bubbles is wonderful. He'sgot the most personality of all.
So what happens is we get me tobubbles bubbles has been there
for at least 15 years, I'mpretty sure Wow. And so he's
been for a long time. And whendivers are in the water, and

(38:47):
they're relatively relaxed inthe big main window in their
tropical reef exhibit, this bigspayed fish will come over and
start trying to eat the bubblesthat you're exhaling it's really
cute. It's really cute. And ifyou haven't really given him a
good, you know, purge of bubblesin a while, he'll kind of start
to like Peck or like nip at yourhairline or which is huge, which

(39:08):
is covered by a hood but he justkind of like looks at the top
and you can feel on bubblebowties like come on, man. Yeah.
Um, but it's really it's areally good sign though. When
bubbles comes over a lot oftimes we'll have brand new
divers that we're doing like anexhibit checkout for and yeah, I
know that someone is definitelypassing when bubbles comes over

(39:31):
and starts trying to eat theirbubbles because it doesn't
happen to do divers very oftenbecause you have to be relaxed.
It's like keep getting like feelwhether you're bubbles so those
are the those are the goodbubbles. And so then when a new
divers getting checked out ofbubbles comes over and uses
bubbles I'm like okay, thisguy's

bubble. That's his check off. Yes.

Yeah. So cute. What's crazy is we have like, I
think like six batfishall of thesame species and none Have them
do it except for him that onefish bubbles, you know? I think
it must have something to dowith like, it just feels good on
his gills because the bubbles goin his mouth and over his gills.

I think people would be surprised to know about
the kind of the personality offish. You know, you don't think
the fish is something reallywith a personality. But I've
learned so much here aboutdifferent animals. Are there any
other fun stories that you'vehad about? Maybe fish in
particular or any other animalsinside of our habitats?

Oh, gosh, I you know, I think the eagle rays
have been a big standout for me.

They're big in size, and big and

exciting. Both because they, they came, they
came to our aquarium, they'reprobably about maybe like a foot
and a half in length. I rememberwhen we first started feeding
there was a male and a female.And now they're how many feet I
think like six or eight like100.

Erin Lundy (40:51):
Yeah. There's so

many Yeah, like five or six foot wingspan. Now I
know their tail is nine feet.And just to see how quickly that
array has grown in the pastthree years, I guess. Yeah, I
guess it has been that manyyears. But you know, in the last
several years, and the funparts, we got to hand feed them
for a period of time. And therewas this like training behavior

(41:13):
that they had to touch thispurple cone before they were
presented with the, with a pieceof clam, which is interesting,
because I couldn't have like Icouldn't show him the clam
before he touched the cone. Likehe has to touch the cone in
order to get the clams. So wecalled ourselves the human
gumball machine. Because youreally have to think about
yourself, like like, you don'tget the gumball until you pull
you put the coin and turn thedial. Yeah, okay. And so the

(41:36):
eagle rays are really fun. Theywere just, it's from a
personality aspect, it was justkind of fun to watch this animal
figure its grow up and figureitself out, like in the same way
that like a little kid is likelearning how to run the correct
way or learning how to put onhis jacket in the right way or
something or just even so muchas I go down and tie your shoes,

(41:57):
but just the kind of fumblingthat animals do as when they're
younger, when they're trying tofigure out how they're going to
grow into their size. It wasreally interesting to see that
in a ray of fish, you know, youdon't really you don't see that
so much in like insects orthings that you see that are
very much just in innateinstinct. Yeah, you know, things

(42:18):
that don't have a motheringperiod, you know, like, like
eagle rays don't have amothering period, they're born,
you know, go ready to go, right.But they still have to figure it
out on their own. They aren'tlike pre programmed to know how
to do it. And so just to seethat like juvenile learning
state develop, and it's normalhave a cat and a dog, I wouldn't
think anything I would havegotten a dog but it was really

(42:40):
special to see that in thiscartilaginous flat shark fish.
With pretty spot.

They are very pretty. So we were talking about
our volunteer divers. Can youtalk a little bit about that
program?

Yeah, so our volunteer dive program. It's,
it's super great. It's a bigtime commitment. It is 1 4 to
five hour shift every week for aminimum of one year for about
75% of the year. So if you arescuba diver, and you want to
come down at the aquarium andyou got some time, maybe you

(43:15):
have like Wednesday afternoons,do you have Friday afternoons,
how about Saturday mornings, youknow, that's the day that you
come in. And so you'll getassigned to a team that's come
in every week on that same team.So I've got like a Friday, I got
a Monday afternoon team that'sall been here for many years.
And they're all just like supergood buddies and friends. And so
you could they come in everyMonday for about 70% of the year

(43:36):
and they just go diving, they dothe underwater presentations.
They do the underwater cleaning,feedings and the observations.
And so they're basically doingeverything here. The minimum age
in order to do this is 18. Soyou do need to be 18, you do
have to be a rescue diver. So Isaid earlier, there was the open
water advanced rescue. So it'sthe third level rescue diver,

(43:59):
you do need to have your FirstAid CPR and AED certification as
well as your emergency O2, whichis all usually things that you
get when you get your rescuecertification as well. And you
need to have 50 logged dives. Sothose are all new minimum
requirements in order to applyfor the program. Mainly just

(44:20):
because you're diving so much weneed you to be of a certain you
know, safety level. And so thenwhat you do is you apply online
if you do have those things, orat least at minimum, if you've
got your recipe certification 50logged dives, sign up, you can
sign up online, you can go toaquarium volunteers.org and
check out the adult. Check outthe the adult volunteer

(44:43):
opportunities and theapplications are open right now.
They're not open most of theyear, and so they just opened on
June 1, and they're going to beopen for a few months this
summer. And so we are acceptingdye volunteers right now and I'm
eager to get some more peoplein. It's a lot of it's a lot of
time it's a lot of training.It's a lot of work. It's the
most demanding volunteer jobI've ever heard of. Yeah, but it

(45:07):
is also the most rewarding

Erin Lundy (45:09):
get they're always so happy when I see them. They
are the nicest people always.And they'll go, Hey, I just got
out of pinnipeds I'm gonna firstshower, then I'm getting a
bouquet you don't like it'salways just the most fun
sounding day to and they're inthe best moods. Yep. And I think
it's just they love being in thewater so much.

There's really a sense of community there too,
I think because I'll go up tothe dive locker and there's a
potluck happening. And they'reall like around and they're all
hanging out. I'll do I'll bedoing it behind the scenes tour.
And it's volunteer divers, and Ihave, you know, guests with me.
And I'm like, hi, everybody.These are volunteer divers. And
everybody says, Hi, everybody'slike talking to my guests. And
just making them feel sowelcomed in that space. I just

(45:47):
think it's so cool. So we had areally amazing group of
volunteers. It's really awesome.And they're so eager to talk
about what they do. Like theyhelp so much with our marketing
efforts. And you know, they'rehere on their own time. It's
really special.

Right, some of them drive super far. Some of
them have a commute of over twohours to three hours to come
every single week, every weekthere and then back again. So

awesome. Shout out to all of our volunteers
shout out to

Erin Lundy (46:11):
our volunteers. So one of the social media
questions that we got was canyou talk while underwater? And
if not, how do you communicatewith other divers while you're
in the water? Good question.

Um, we can talk but our talking is limited to
only the person on the dry sideof the tank with a microphone we
cannot talk to each otherunderwater unfortunately. Um, so
our you know, Bluetooth actuallydoes not work under underwater
either and solely and you know,it doesn't I believe that
there's countless likerudimentary version of it with

(46:40):
some kind of underwater comms. Ithink there's some commercial
driving aspects to do it, but wedon't, our communication line is
a hard line that goes straightfrom the mask up to the surface,
we wear a full face mask, andthere's a little microphone
inside the oral mouth nasalmouthpiece area. And so we
hardline that to the top andthen we can talk to somebody on

(47:01):
a microphone on the other side.Which is it's pretty interesting
because when we're trying totalk to that person on their
side, we have to make sure thatthey're not asking us a question
at the same time that we'retaking an inhale it's loud to
think about breathing breathingis loud underwater, you know,
and so breathing out bubbles andtaking the air into you know,

(47:23):
out from the tank in your bodyor blowing out the bubbles, it's
loud and so you have to kind oftime your breathing correctly,
to when this person is going tobe talking. So that's why we
don't do too much communicatethat's why we don't do any
communicating with each otherunderwater. When it comes to
trying to communicate with eachother underwater, we have hand

(47:44):
signals, which are there most ofthem are just the generic dive
industry hand signals that youlearn in your open water
classes. Sometimes we like tomake up new ones. That's kind of
one of the fun parts of divingis when you're planning your
dive, sitting back and be likeokay, so what are we going to be
talking what are we going toneed to talk about underwater

(48:06):
and therefore what are some handsize like what are some hand
signs that we can do like forexample just this last week I
mean one of the trop reefAquarist Celeste when a when in
the exhibit to take some photosfor feeding training binder and
so she was I was like her littlemodel and she had take pictures
of me and I wasn't sure we shewas taking two shots one was how

(48:28):
the position is supposed to beand one how the position is
supposed to be like I know likeyes I do and there it is. And so
we had hand signals for doing itdon't and our like don't hand
signal was like an upside downokay sign and are like this is
this is the good shot was a wasthe sign you do for money money
because it's the money shotrubbing bills in between Yeah.

(48:49):
And so that was the money shotsthat was the hand side the way
we just use it just for thatdive. And then so when we were
under there though, when we wereall done and we wrapped it all
up we all started making it rainrain that was little fun any
shot make it rain, so that'skind of a new funny one. It's
really fun. But there's there'stons of there's there's tons of

there's a whole language of communication
underwater. Yes, that's right.Yeah, I

Erin Lundy (49:15):
think the hardest barrier for entry for me was
that I kept putting a thumbs upevery time something I was like
yeah, regulators working. Yeah,I'm doing great. And my friend
who was teaching me to dive likeyanked me out were like three
feet underwater yanked me outthe water. Stop doing that.
Yeah. And I was like, ah, and soI like never did the okay so my

(49:35):
dad always doesn't okay. And Ijust associated with like my
dorky dad to change it from athumbs up to an okay sign
because if you do a thumbs up,that means go to the surface,
which is a very specific thing.

I totally catch myself doing that too, because
I'll do photos with our diveteam. You know, when I get the
shot, I give a thumbs up and I'mlike, I'm like but I'm not
listening. You know, if you're

trying to tell a diver with that Telling them
that that was like awesome orgood or cool or yay give them a
hang 10 signs, okay the shaka

one of my favorite things to witness as an
employee is the interactionsbetween our divers and our
guests. Cute. They play rockpaper scissors, they give high
fives, they blow water bubblekisses, and it's so amazing. Can
you talk about the interactionyou've had with their guests?

Oh, gosh, that's so fun. Yeah, we couldn't see
the guests just as well as theycan see us, which I think is
fun. I mean, the glass I thinkis like between like five to
nine inches thick. But we cansee we can't hear on the other
side of the glass too much. Butum, but we can definitely see
it. And rock paper scissors isalways so much fun. I think the
most fun is seeing the look, notonly just the look on the kids

(50:47):
faces, but the look on theadults faces. And how similar in
a wonder they are is it's reallycool because you know, the
adults get this this this chargeof energy sometimes and their
eyes just light up when theylook at you and they're so
excited. But they're genuinelyexcited for themselves not just
excited for their kids for thekid to see the diver. And so

(51:08):
that's that's a fun thing for mebecause and I've done some odd
jobs in the years and you know,being a princess character at a
birthday party or something iodd jobs. And let me tell you,
they're never no one has everbeen more excited to see a scuba
diver forget. Forget princesses.It's all about the scuba divers.

(51:29):
And so that's been really fun tosee that kind of wonder
excitement, amazement out ofadults and kids when you're when
you're under there, and so wecan see you just as well. We'd
love to do rock paper scissors.We like just like staring at the
kids because they're juststaring us it's just like,
because you can see they'rethinking like, Are you a real
person? Like, who are you? Doyou actually see me? What are

(51:53):
you like how you breathing,they're just staring at you
trying to figure it out. And sosometimes I just like to stare
back just trying to figure thatout. Do you know, it gives them
cross eyes. A lot of times liketo go upside down. Which is kind
of fun, too. And so just youknow, just being animated.
Haven't been so inspiring

to because I think when you're a kid, you see
that and you're like, oh, that'sthat's a person that's a job. I
can maybe do that. Yes, I couldmaybe do and being an adult to
just realizing like, oh, you cando that. There's opportunities
to do some feeling

right. It's that lender, right? That it says
instilling that sense of wonder,right and astronaut,

you know, like, yes, it's you're seeing you're
Right? floating around? Yeah.
in a suit and you're in a spacewhere gravity is kind of weird.

It's very much yeah, it's very much like
watching Yeah, like watchinglike a real life astronaut. Do
it. It's, you almost wish sooften you wish that you could
just like pull them right intothe water with you. Yeah, you
know, that's, that's the hardpart. It's hard to say goodbye.
You know, it's you say no, no,it's always it's always hard to
say goodbye. You just want tostay down there and wave and
high five. And just like, youreally wish that you could just

(53:02):
get to know these people alittle bit more when you're
looking at them had five moreminutes. You know, I've won my
like dreams has always been youknow, because I just think about
like, random cooling couldn't becool if we if we all had
communication lines. And there'slike a red mask and a blue mask
and the mask, you could press abutton and talk to the red mask
diver, or the blue mask or theseare these are all great. These

(53:23):
are Rachel fantasies. You know,I don't know just if there's a
way that I could just I don'tknow, or sometimes I just wish
that I could just like, dry offreal quick and run down and see
everybody and just kind of meetme, I'm a real person.

You know, like note that's

funny. One of the funniest things I've ever
seen was when I was watchingsome divers, and there was
these, there was a couple oflittle old ladies, there was
conversation whether the diversare real or not. And she's like,
I'm not sure they I thinkthey're real. I don't I'm not
sure. And her friend was likethose aren't real people. Those
are robots. And so certain socertain she convinced her friend

(54:03):
didn't just like thank herselfcompletely convinced her friend
that she was ridiculous forthinking that they were real
people. They're definitely robot

Erin Lundy (54:11):
that we could afford as a nonprofit that look and act
just like real people. And cleanand do

technology.

Erin Lundy (54:23):
underwater robots.

I get that sometimes some people will
comment on our TikToks and saythis sea lion CGI, no way does
it look like that? Yeah, youmust think I'm, I'm adding that
to my resume. so talented that Ican CGI.

Erin Lundy (54:35):
It's usually like the facial expressions are
trained to do like a smile or atongue people like that's fake
and you're like, why? How wouldI have faked that that is

a lot of a lot of trust in my talent.

Erin Lundy (54:46):
But in a world where deep fakes and AI and all these
things are happening todaysuspicious, I'm just gonna deep
fake a robot into Rachel andthen it'd be very confusing.

Imagine I just have a vision of Rachel doing
the robot in her scuba makes youTikTok, there we go.

this can happen

Erin Lundy (55:05):
Underwater, you should do the robot. Perfect.
Amazing. We have your nextTikTok idea,

I think Yeah. Speaking of TikToks, Rachel has
hosted some live TikToks whilediving. And they are so much fun
to do. But so many people goingback to kind of like taking your
breaths at the right time andeverything there's so many
people are after remind them inthe comments, or Rachel and I
will be speaking while she'sunderwater and I'm in an area
above, okay, it's kind of like acloset that we that we huddle

(55:33):
into. And I've always looked atmy closet, my personal AOP
closet. And I have to tellpeople like Rachel's fine,
everybody, she's breathingunderwater, so it's just gonna
take moments where she'sbreathing and you hear it, and
it kind of sounds like Is sheokay? Is she alright? It's like,
yeah, she's doing great. I'mlike, Rachel, you doing good.
And then she's like, yep, doinggreat. Those are really, really

(55:53):
fun to do. Yeah. Do you want to?

Yeah, that was so much fun. One of the
highlights of working here sofar actually has been doing that
TikTok live underwater,especially because it was the
first time I had done it andwhere presentation since before
COVID. So I was definitely outof breath.

i It's a lot to talk and dive at the same time.
Using is there 40 minutes longminimum. So yeah, those live
streams. So

a lot of people don't understand too is that
with diving, you're actuallyyou're actually like swimming
with your breath. So by usingyour lung volume, I mean your
lung volume is a lot of air anda full breath of air can make
you float and a without any canmake you sink and that's where
we actually used keep goodbuoyancy underwater while we're
diving. And so to talk, youdon't really have control over

(56:37):
that. And so your buoyancy justkind of gets like all around the
grouper almost ate the GoPro.

Yeah, that's I'm gonna put that in the show
notes, too. There's a really funvideo of the group. We're just
going for it. Yeah,

he's like, this is the group or here's just like
you see the inside of his gillsand I'm like,

Erin Lundy (56:54):
it was late after we last saw the inside of our
grouper today it was awesome

last question is I think some people don't
realize that fish have teeth, orare capable of kind of nibbling?
Does that happen ever? Yeah,

the nibblers of the exhibits are usually the
smallest, the smallest animalsand the small and they're in
quite a few of the exhibits upin the chop grief. They're the
small black damselfish or Ithink they're called White
spotted damsels. They're maybelike the size of a base. Like
they're like the roundness of abaseball. They're super small.
And they are territorial.They're kind of like a Garibaldi

(57:33):
the same kind of species of yourbodies. They're territorial of a
certain area. So if like, youare trying to scrub a rock and
you have your hand on anotherrock, which you're trying to
gain for lead, just holding onto for leverage. They'll come
over and they'll come like peckat your fingers, my rock, that's
my rock. Like taking yourfinger, which it doesn't hurt.
But man, it'll make you jump outhere. Are

you sure? Yeah,

it's very start. It's very startling. So those
are the only ones that actuallylike well unnecessarily like eat
you are trying to you know, eatat you. That we do all have to
wear gloves and hoods, thoughbecause we have to cover our
fingertips and our, our ears aswell. Because both of those if
just a little bit of a this isexposed, it looks like a piece

(58:17):
of clam and a lot of the animalsactually clam. And so but yeah,
they you know, the, the onlyever really nibble on you when
you're feeding like duringfeeding time or if they're
associated

with food. Yeah. Oh, it's

totally if you got food. It's a food thing or a
little bit of a Hey, that's myrock.

Cool. Well, thank you so much for joining us
on our podcast. Yeah, that'sreally important. I know I
learned so much and I can't waitto get a lot of. Aquarium of the
Podcific is brought to you byAquarium of the Pacific a 501 C
three nonprofit organization in2023. The aquarium celebrates 25
years of connecting millions ofpeople worldwide to the beauty

(59:00):
and wonder of our ocean planet.Head to aquarium of pacific.org
to learn more about our 25thanniversary celebration. Keep up
with the aquarium on socialmedia @aquariumpacific on
TikTok, Instagram, Facebook,Twitter and LinkedIn.

Erin Lundy (59:13):
This podcast is produced by Erin Lundy, Madeline
Walden and Scott Shaw. Our musicis by Andrew Reitsma and our
podcast art is by Brandy Kenney,special thanks to Cecile Fisher
and Anitza Valles and our audiovisual and education
departments, and to all of ouramazing podcast guests for
taking time out of their day totalk about the important work
that they do. But cific wouldn'tbe possible without the support

(59:35):
of the aquarium donors, members,guests and supporters. Thanks
for listening

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