Aqua-nuts

Yesterday was Aquarium Day. I had gone on-line the night before and bought a combo ticket that got us into the aquarium, the IMAX theater and on the River Gorge Explorer cruise. The aquarium is in two buildings and the theater in a third, all located around a square in the downtown area one block away from the waterfront where the cruise starts. The rest of the block contains all sorts of restaurants and the parking lot ($8).

We picked up our tickets and headed into the Oceans building. The first exhibit was a pool where we were invited to touch manta rays. The whole museum was highly decorated for Halloween.

From there, the tour took us into a butterfly room. Now, I don't quite get the connection with the world oceans, but it was a magical place. After you enter through a double door, the butterflies are flying all around you. Sometimes, they land on you! The exhibit contains specimens from up to 65 different species. They buy the butterflies in chrysalis form and keep them in a nursery until they hatch. Some can take a year to mature before they emerge. Most come from Costa Rica and Belize. A new batch of whatever is available is released each day at 4:00pm. They have a variety of plants growing that are each favorite foods for different species of butterfly. They also feed them slices of oranges.

Each of the aquarium buildings is four stories high. The exhibits begin on the fourth floor and then you make your way downward through the exhibits on ramps, stopping along the way at each new presentation. Each building also has a three story aquarium in it in addition to the many smaller tanks and displays. There are opportunities to see each of the tanks at various levels and many tanks have domes or chambers that children can crawl into and be surrounded by the tank. There's lots of natural looking stone and habitat.

This is one of several tanks of jellyfish. The tanks are round, which tends to magnify the view. They are also lit from the bottom with lights that change colors.

The second building focuses on rivers of the world and their various ecosystems. It's a good chance to see that while many parts of the world differ, they all have similarities and common problems. We got to see species we'd only heard of. They had quite a display of sturgeon from around the world, all  kinds of turtles and amphibians, too.





Between buildings, we took in the IMAX theater presentation. The film we saw was a presentation about undersea life, narrated by Jim Carrey. It was in 3D and it was superb.

At 4:00, we moved to the waterfront to board the River Gorge Explorer. This is a unique boat, designed and built especially for this service. It is a catamaran, meaning it has two side-by-side hulls and is hydrofoil assisted. That means it has an airfoil wing mounted between the hulls that puts the whole boat up on plane when up to speed. The shallow draft on plane of 6 1/2 inches means that the four engines, totaling 3500 hp can drive the loaded boat at 55 mph down the river. And since they can reverse the thrust, it stops just as well, as the captain was happy to demonstrate several times.

The cruise took us downstream on the Tennessee River to the next dam in the TVA system and lasted three hours, most of it cruising at slow speed so all who wished could ride up on top and watch the shore go by.
Diane enjoyed the ride:

The fall colors were right at peak. If only the weather had cooperated, it would have been perfect. As it was it was still a terrific experience on a unique craft.

One of the highlights of the trip was seeing a mature bald eagle fly low over the boat. Another one was seeing a deer swimming across the river, which at this point was over two football fields wide.