Swimming with the Fish at the Denver Aquarium: A Ten Year Old's Experience

On May 10th 2008 Kathleen went swimming with the fish at the Denver Aquarium. This was her birthday present from her parents for her tenth birthday. Her parents explain that since she was little Kathleen has been fascinated by all things aquatic.

Kathleen and her father arrived at the aquarium at 10 AM on Saturday, they entered through the restaurant doors and went into the "Dive Lounge" to meet the rest of their group and the dive master. They spent approximately 30 minutes in a "briefing" on safety and the animals in the tank and then were given wet suits and snorkels. Kathleen's father said that initially Kathleen was given a floating device which she wasn't used to; he finally explained to the staff that she had been swimming on a team for 3 years and she would do fine in the tank on her own.

Once she was rid of the flotation device, she fiddled with the snorkel a little but got it straightened out and was able to move around the tank. "It took me a while to get used to breathing and not get water up my nose!" Kathleen said with a laugh. Her father noted that a staff member was keeping an eye on her in the tank throughout the swim.

I spoke to her afterward. Wearing her new blue t-shirt that said "I swam with the sharks" and sitting on her bed she was bouncing and animated. She was all excitement and very interested in the nurse shark which she described as having an interesting head and skin like a sting ray. She was quick to point out that it looked like sting ray skin but she didn't touch it because during the briefing the staff had reminded them not to touch the animals. "I sort of knew this," she said "but you can't touch fish even with gloves on. You can give them an infection." The nurse shark apparently kept to itself.

Her other favorite animal was the sea turtle. "I almost touched it by accident!" she exclaimed and one wonders if she had hoped to bump into it. She explained that she was trying to get away from another swimmer's feet and got closer to the sea turtle than she had expected. The sea turtle, she noted, like to swim back and forth in front of the glass. It sort of ignored the swimmers, in fact according to Kathleen most of the fish ignored the swimmers. When they were first entering the water a fish had swum over as if curious, but once there were many people there it had quickly swum away.

She was fascinated by the grouper, "a huge, huge fish. It is very friendly but its about 200 lbs! I would follow it because I was interested in it, but then it would want to swim up to me and I didn't like it being so close because it was so big!"

And she remarks that the green moray eels just sit. They like to be next to the rocks and just sit there and open and shut their mouths.

Another thing she liked was that while the group was swimming in the tank the aquarium was open to the public. "We could see the people and they could see us and I was waving at them and they waved back." She is giggling and waving as she says this and seems quite pleased with her self. "It was, 'hi peoples!'"
She explains that there is an area where the nurse sharks are over the visitors heads, like a tunnel the people walk under, and she was above the people with the nurse sharks and waving.

I ask her if this is a good experience for kids. Should other parents take their children swimming with fish in the aquarium? She cocks her head and thinks and says "it is a good learning experience." I ask what she learned. "Well, I learned how to snorkel and about fish."