How adventurous are you? Do you live near the Adventure Aquarium in New Jersey? Grab your swimsuit because you can jump in the water with the sharks! YIPPEEEEE – For $165.00, you can go snorkeling with the sharks, barracuda and stingrays. “Dan Russo, aquarium biologist, said there are three different species of sharks in the exhibit. There are brown or sand bar sharks, sand tiger sharks and nurse sharks, he said. The brown sharks are the most inquisitive and the nurse sharks just sit and cuddle. I call them best friends.” This interview was conducted by Kelly Roncace, NJ.com.

The Adventure Aquarium also offers a fun adventure with the Seals for only $145.00 and you get to meet up close the grey and harbour seals and learn how to communicate with them and feed them treats.

One of my favorite creatures is the penguins and the Adventure Aquarium also offers an upclose program with the Black footed African Penguins. You will have the opportunity to learn how the aquarium cares and feeds them and you can even help with training.

I received a very nice email from a fellow snorkeler, Amalia and she told me about how you (we) can go diving with the sharks in Maui, at the Maui Ocean Center.

Years ago, I have had the pleasure to visit the beautiful islands of Hawaii many times and I was totally unaware of this wonderful experience. (though this program might have just started in the last few years).

If you know scuba diving, you will know that the diving in Maui is not inexpensive. You will pay an average of $125.00 for 2 tanks and there is no guarantee what you will see. Here at the Maui Ocean Center, you will be in the water up to 2.5 hours for $199.00. You will experience in the 750,000 gallon tank, sharks stingrays and thousands of tropical reef fish.

Though the Maui Ocean Center only offers the experience of scuba diving, we hope that one day they will realize that us snorkelers would love to experience this adventure also.

Thank you Amalia for the information!

OH MY GAWD… you have to love this story. As a snorkeling freek, I always find any story about the underwater world exciting, well that is if they have a happy ending. An octopus at the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium in California seemed to play a game after hours and flooded the offices. There was a valve that she tugged on and it allowed hundreds of gallons of water to overflow the tank. All of the beautiful underwater creatures were not harmed. Below is a video from CNN.

I have to laugh because I have great memories of octopus in my scuba & snorkeling adventures. I have a good friend who in his early days of diving, wanted that perfect shot of the octopus and the octo was not cooperating. The Octopus got his attention and flew across the waters and landed on his mask… now some would think that was cute but it could of been fatal if the Octopus took his regulator out of his mouth. But it didnt happen and we laughed our butts off. My friend has not messed with an octopus again. (Wish I had my video camera then.)

If you are like me, you LOVE aquariums! Being a snorkeler, how can you not? And because of our passion for snorkeling, it is important to get your kids involved in snorkeling at an early age. Another way, is to read our snorkeling guide, How to Familiarize the Kids to Snorkeling. We did a search and found The 10 Best Aquariums for Kids (in the USA) from Parents Magazine.

Their rating is based on how the kids face light up when they are at the aquarium and how involved are the kids, participation was important. A question survey was evaluated on the quality, kid friendliness of the exhibits, staff and educators and much more. Parents Magazine’s panel of experts narrowed it down to their top 10 surveyed.

#1 – Monterey Bay Aquarium (California)
#2 – Georgia Aquarium (Atlanta)
#3 – Shedd Aquarium. (Chicago)
#4 – New England Aquarium. (Boston)
#5 – The Florida Aquarium. (Tampa)
#6 – Aquarium of the Pacific (Long Beach, CA)
#7 – Atlantis Marine World (Long Island, NY)
#8 – Oregon Coast Aquarium (Newport)
#9 – SeaWorld (Orlando, FL; San Diego, CA; San Antonio; TX)
#10 – National Aquarium (Baltimore, MD)