I’m a volunteer kelp forest vacuumer!
Hey everyone! This is Patrick on the Aquarium’s Social Media team! I was asked to share a bit about what it’s like to volunteer at the Aquarium—and that’s what you’re reading right now! Woo! There will be fewer exclamation points soon! Here we go.
We heart our volunteers!
April is Volunteer Appreciation Month here at the Monterey Bay Aquarium—and wow, do we appreciate our volunteers. There are 400 or so paid staff members here, and over 1,500 volunteers. If you like something at the Aquarium, there’s a volunteer to thank somewhere. Thanks volunteers!
Extracurricular activities
As for me, I started volunteering at the Aquarium about seven years ago when I was a sophomore at UC Santa Cruz studying marine biology. I spent Saturday nights with rescued and rehabilitated sea otters, then cleaned up after the penguins for a while—smelly!
Volunteering with the air-breathing animals was a great way to put my studies to work. I got to meet the fin-tastic people who work here and to peer into the world of the Aquarium’s land-based activities.
But then, there was the whole underwater world of the Aquarium…
How do I do that?! — Me, then
Diving right on in
I got my answer through UCSC’s scientific diving class my junior year. The Aquarium’s excellent Dive Safety Office often hosts local scientific diving classes in the Kelp Forest exhibit to test the SCUBA-babies’ species identification and diving skills.
A few years later, with the memory of diving in the Kelp Forest exhibit still fresh in my mind, I applied to be a volunteer diver for the Aquarium, and found a spot on the Thursday B maintenance dive team—GO KILLER B’s!
There, I was welcomed by some of the most generous, hardworking, and inspirational volunteers in the whole volunteer corps. Many of these dedicated souls have been diving at the Aquarium longer than I’ve been alive, and several have been volunteers since (slightly before) the Aquarium opened!
My job sucks—kelp, that is!
Most weeks, my job on the team is to slurp up the drift kelp from the exhibit, using a siphon—basically an underwater vacuum! You can see me standing next to the assembled device at the top left, and on the right me hopping onto it to ensure a tight seal as it gets going.
Our Kelp Forest exhibit is a living, breathing, constantly exfoliating exhibit. The giant kelp on display can grow over four inches every single day, and with several dozen algae species in the same tank, there’s a lot of sloughed off detritus to pick up to keep the exhibit clean.
We do this by inching over the bottom little by little—being extra careful to move sea cucumbers aside away from the siphon hose! A good haul may be over 30 pounds of kelp that can be used to feed other animals in the Aquarium, or create excellent compost.
It’s all about the community!
Beyond getting to dive in the exhibits and helping keep them in world-class condition, the community of volunteer divers and the great times we share every shift is what keeps us coming back week after week.
When I first visited the Aquarium as kid over two decades ago, I was fascinated by the marine life and the divers inside the tank. To get to see the same expression I remember having on the faces of the next generation of five-year olds on the other side of the exhibit windows gets my cheeks extra wet and salty every time.
I’m honored to be able to dive in the footsteps of so many ocean-minded volunteers that have helped inspire me and countless others to help conserve the world ocean; and I’m so glad be able to share a bit of my story with you all.
Thanks for reading everyone! I’ll see you here at the Aquarium, online and in person. Onward!
