Journey With The Gentle Giants

You get to see some of the most beautiful and exotic animals on earth while SCUBA diving in the open ocean, but it's not every day that you can come face to face with a whale shark, the largest fish in the world. Such encounters are the stuff of dreams and the memories will stay with you for the rest of your life. The Georgia Aquarium's Journey With The Gentle Giants swim and dive program gives our guests that experience.

Come Dive With Us!

"The sea, once it casts it's spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever." ~Jacques Yves Cousteau

While taking a break from your hectic schedule, you plan an outing for your family and friends at the Georgia Aquarium. Perhaps you've dabbled in the world of SCUBA diving, but leaving your commitments behind to explore a tropical reef is not something that you can easily pencil into your datebook or your wallet. So there you sit, beneath the vast expanse of the Ocean Voyager windows thinking about what it would be like to swim on the other side of that glass. You know there are volunteers who get to dive with all of the amazing creatures before you, but they certainly aren't anyone you know. So how do they do it? How does the everyday-person get to experience life beneath the surface?

Freediving Training

Elliott Jessup conducted a freediving course for team members of the Dive Immersion Program (DIP) and Dive Operations. Freediving offers a natural diving experience where you are unconstrained by SCUBA equipment. Using only a mask, snorkel, fins, weight belt and ONE breath, divers are able to dive to remarkable depths for extended periods of time.

Research in the Bahamas of A Gorgonian Coral Species

The Georgia Aquarium was recruited to assist in a National Science Foundation project conducted by the University at Buffalo and University of Miami. Elliott Jessup, along with three other Georgia Aquarium biologists went down to Florida, where the University of Miami provided the vessel for the trip to the Bahamas. This was no vacation though, but was instead an interesting study on population dynamics.

ScubaPro Protech Regulator Clinic

At the Georgia Aquarium, every single one of the regulators used not only undergoes a monthly inspection, but is also rebuilt once a year. Selected individuals (staff and highly qualified volunteers) participated in the two full days of the ScubaPro training clinic to teach them to work on and rebuild regulators.

Welcome to the Dive Locker

Like all great teams, we have a base of operations, aptly named the DiveLocker. Here we do everything from maintenance to filling tanks.