PEOPLE & 



PLACES 



Zm Diving: 



Aquarium Divers tmd Niche 



By Katie Mosher 

 Photographs by Daryl Law 



I 



.t's a volunteer gig with a twist: Diving 

 with saltwater fish, sea turtles — even sharks. 



But Pat Murphy, dive safety officer at 

 the North Carolina Aquarium at Roanoke 

 Island, isn't looking for adventurers on an 

 adrenaline rush. He quickly weeds out 

 danger-seekers. Instead, he looks for divers 

 with a Zen-like approach. 



"In Zen diving, you feel what the 

 animals feel in the water," Murphy says. 

 "You are not a hunter. You are not a master. 

 You are going in their space to do a job." 



The aquarium tank diving experience 

 doesn't compare to open dives, nor to generic 

 pool dives. "These are animals that you could 

 not approach in the wild," says Murphy, who 

 sometimes will strike a Buddha position in the 

 tank. "I could sit in the tank for hours — if I 

 had enough air — and just watch the fish." 



"Murph" and his corps of volunteer 

 divers don't even flinch when a green sea 

 turtle tries to nibble at the air bubbles rising 

 just above their heads. "Whenever you 

 exhale, he's there," says Gerald George, who 

 started volunteering last summer. 



The largest tank in the Manteo facility, 

 "The Graveyard of the Atlantic," holds 

 285,000 gallons of saltwater and features a 

 scale replica of the famed Monitor shipwreck. 

 The tank also is home to about a half-dozen 

 sharks. That can be unnerving at first, some 

 volunteers admit. 



Continued 



Preparations for a dive are serious business 

 for aquarium staff and volunteers. 



COASTWATCH 21 



