Monterey Bay Aquarium's New Open Sea Exhibit Conveys Vastness of Oceans

Veteran sailors will often tell you that along with its stark beauty, the open ocean can often bring a certain loneliness.

They've recounted such feelings in both song and story, after all, for hundreds of years.

When you're out there, they say '" far out of sight of land '" you realize that you're on a sort of desert, watery but desolate.

Or so it might seem on first impression.

But a closer look reveals a whole universe of life found on the constantly changing palette of blues, grays and blacks that make up the colors of the water in a zone known as the "pelagic" (from the Greek) or, more commonly, the open sea.

So, as part of their continuing effort to give guests glimpses of things and places they've never seen before, the curators of the Monterey Bay Aquarium have opened "The Open Sea" '" a unique exhibit attempting to replicate an area of the Pacific Ocean approximately 200 miles from the shores of Monterey.

It's an area they have nicknamed the realm of the "the vast and the fast," for its size and depth, and for the lightning-quick speeds of the predators that live there. What used to be known as the "Outer Bay" galleries have undergone an extensive makeover to reflect life in some of the least-explored parts of the Pacific, according to David Cripe, the aquarium's special exhibits coordinator.

"The idea behind this is to give the visitor an inkling of the life and light they might encounter way out there," Cripe said during a recent tour.

Visitors will find many of the same species in the Aquarium's premier 1 million gallon tank with its famed 54-foot-wide, 13-inch thick acrylic wall when it known as the "Outer Bay," Cripe said.

But now patrons will also see new species representative of many of the great migratory and schooling fish and other animals found where sharp winds whip up house-size swells and azure waters run deep '" very deep.

Hiding in plain sight

The Open Sea exhibit, which opened July 2, also features a redesigned Ocean Travelers gallery that houses some of the ocean's most impressive long-distance swimmers and navigators, including young sea turtles and diving seabirds such as tufted puffins. One of the highlights includes a new interactive multimedia wall that's devoted to plankton, the microscopic animals that form the base of the food web in the oceans.

Found throughout also are new art installations that drive home the necessity for humans to conserve and preserve Earth's oceans. According to Aquarium spokeswoman Angela Hains, the new art displays represent the first time that such works have been displayed in conjunction with live animal exhibits.

The new redone main tank and ancillary displays were done in conjunction with lighting specialists whose job it was to attempt to mimic how sunlight '" or, sometimes, the lack thereof '" illuminates the deep ocean, said Charlie Aslanian, the Aquarium's vice president of facilities operations.

"Getting the lighting just right was a big part of this $19 million renovation," said Aslanian, who serves as the Aquarium's chief engineer.

Indeed, now hanging from catwalks above the main tank is a series of movie-set-like lights with specialized blue gels or filters. The visual effect for patrons downstairs in the visitors gallery is dramatic.

"Previously, with the Outer Bay, the lighting wasn't all that much better than what you'd see on your typical swimming pool," Aslanian said. "I think we've learned a lot since then."

To be sure, now when one of the tank's tunas streaks by, it's as though they've appeared out of nowhere.

"Not only have we gone to great pains to get the color tonality right, but, as you can see, it's darker in the back and lighter right at the edge of the viewing wall," Aslanian said. "Now, when the fish come out from back, it can very dramatic. It's a lot of fun."

Aslanian noted that in addition to the specialized lighting, painting some 192 acrylic tank tiles helped curators achieve a visual illusion that makes the animals not only appear out of nowhere but disappear from view in the same fashion.

In reality, the animals are merely swimming in circles, Aslanian said. The now dark-blue tank tiles lend the display a much-needed, seamless depth of field, he said.

Great white shark expected soon

The new renovation is all about getting patrons to understand the delicate balance of life in the seas and how conservation is not just an abstract concept. Cripe said.

"All of us in this line of work know that these animals serve as our ambassadors," he said. "We know that if people come here and begin to care about these animal guys, there's a good chance they will start caring about the animals out there.

"That's a critical part of our mission."

Many of the animals found in the new displays show off nature's own mastery of the art of camouflage, as Cripe points out. Many fishes in the open sea are "counter-shaded" '" with their top half dark and lower half light, making them difficult to see when viewed from a predators' side-view perspective, he said.

Indeed, tunas, sardines, barracuda and mackerel are all natural magicians as their silvery color and tendency to swim in tight schooling patterns often allows them to just disappear in front of a viewer '" or, as the case may be, a larger and hungrier fish.

The Open Sea exhibit will change over time with different sea animals being added and removed periodically, Hains said.

One favorite species of Aquarium visitors '" the great white shark '" is scheduled to make a return engagement at some point this summer, she said, even as

Aquarium marine biologists and animal husbandry experts begin their 10th white shark conservation research field season.

Since 2004, when the Aquarium put the first of five white sharks on display, some 2.5 million visitors have flocked to the Monterey facility to see the marine predator first made globally famous by the 1975 movie "Jaws."