On one Tuesday morning in August, Celeste Parry put on her scuba gear and dove into a tank at Birch Aquarium. She spent the morning feeding garibaldis, a black sea bass, eels and more in Birch’s giant Giant Kelp Forest tank.
“Feeding is fun, but it takes your full concentration because they're swarming all around you,” Parry said. “When I first started doing it, I was nervous and my mom told me to just pretend that they were little puppies. So, in my head that's what I do."
Parry is one of the scuba diver volunteers at the aquarium. She cleans animal inhabitants, feeds the fish and teaches visitors about our oceans.
Before the dive, Parry and a second diver listen to safety officer and senior aquarist Melissa Torres explain their tasks for the day. They get ready on a platform at the top of the tank, out of view from aquarium visitors.
“Keep your eyes out for the scorpion fish that are still on the bottom, those blind California moray eels, and in general all the fish that we see coming around you,” Torres tells them. “You guys have any residual nitrogen I should worry about? You ready for some scuba? All right, please do a buddy check and keep an eye on each other on the bottom.”
The divers pull on the rest of their equipment. Parry wears a full-on wetsuit for warmth while diving because it’s pretty cold most of the year. But that day the water was a warm 70-something degrees.
Parry’s getup also includes flippers, full face mask, buoyancy compensator (a backpack of sorts to keep her buoyant in the water) and of course, the scuba tank.
“Yes, this is quite heavy,” Parry said, tapping the pile of equipment. “The whole setup all together is at least 50 pounds if not more. Luckily once we get in the water we're neutrally weighted, so we just float there.”
Once suited up, the divers flop into the dive box. They slowly float to the bottom, until nothing is seen but bubbles bubbling to the surface.
A longtime volunteer
Parry said she’s passionate about volunteering because the aquarium gives people a glimpse of what life is like in our oceans.
“It helps remind people, ‘Hey, all this stuff is right here,’” Parry said. “We should appreciate it, go see it, and do what we can to protect it and keep our oceans and our beaches clean and healthy.”
Parry learned to scuba taking lessons in Monterey Bay with her sister — a high school graduation gift from her father.
“My favorite part about scuba is the peaceful feeling when you go down underwater,” she said. “It's not quiet, you know, the ocean's actually a pretty loud place.”
There’s sounds from the waves, boats and even the fish. Parry said they can make deep sounds.
“Sound moves four times faster in water than air. So our human brains and ears aren't really tuned to be able to tell the direction,” Parry said. “So to us, it just sounds like there's sound all around us coming from everywhere.”
Parry started volunteering at Birch Aquarium as an undergraduate at UC San Diego. She continued volunteering while a graduate student at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
She now has a career in marine mammal conservation and is a mom of three, but still finds time to dive in with the fish at Birch.
“My favorite have to be the garibaldis,” Parry said. “They're the California state fish. They are super obvious because they're the bright orange fish in the tank, but they also have big personalities and they'll come right up to you.”
Clocking in
Back down in front of the tank, children scream gleefully when Parry appears.
She starts her shift cleaning the front of the tank. Using a sponge, she wipes back and forth. She holds onto a handle with a suction cup to keep from floating away from the tank window.
Meanwhile, the second diver siphons debris off the bottom of the habitat with a special aquatic vacuum.
After cleaning, Parry swims up to retrieve a bucket of feed for the fish. She opens the lid as she floats back down and hundreds of pieces of food float out.
As predicted, the fish swarm Parry, frantically trying to get a bite.
Some animals like the eels stick their entire head in the bucket. Others, like the moody sea bass, completely ignore the feeding frenzy.
At the end of her shift, Parry waves “goodbye” to the visitors on the other side of the tank and floats back to the surface.
The Scripps community at Birch
Not just any scuba diver can jump in with Birch’s fish. You must be certified with an American Academy of Underwater Sciences Scientific Diving Certification.
“This certification provides the divers with the skills and knowledge needed to work in our aquariums, with our animals, on the level we are asking of them,” said Torres, the safety officer.
Since volunteer divers need that higher level training, many in the diver training program are from the Scripps community, either graduate students or alumni. The volunteer dive program was established in 2013.
Besides her love of the ocean, Parry continues to volunteer to stay connected to the Scripps community.
It also has given her purpose during different phases of her life.
“As I've gone on and changed jobs and had my family and it's sort of a constant that reminds me what I care most about,” Parry said. “Now that I have my kids and they can come here and watch me and feel a little bit of pride in what their mom does. It's really special.”
