Talk about strange places for Scuba diving and unique experiences and one of the first places that come to mind is diving with sharks in icy Minnesota. Somehow that phrase doesn’t sound right, however it’s true. If you are ever in Minneapolis and visit the Mall of America, the Underwater Adventures Aquarium provides you with the opportunity to do just that, Scuba dive with sharks.
The Underwater Adventures Aquarium is a massive aquarium housed inside the Mall of America, that is extremely well known for its well stocked tanks of several species of marine life. The Aquarium offers several Adventures such as sleeping overnight in the shark tank tunnels, feeding sharks and swimming with them, but for certified scuba divers, Underwater Adventures provides a program for $195 which includes, aquarium admission, a behind-the-scenes tour, a dive into Fisherman’s Hollow and Shark Cove, snacks and refreshments and a souvenir T-shirt to take home.
The program starts off with an impressive behind-the-scenes tour of restricted areas of the aquarium, where you get to see the food preparation areas, the quarantine tanks and filtration equipment for the massive marine tanks. You are then given a tour of the tanks where the helpful staff guide you through the tanks you will be diving in.
The first dive is a Freshwater tank known as Fisherman’s hollow which is a massive tank housing local Minnesota lake fish such as Sturgeon, Muskie, carp, sunfish, gar, walleye, Bass, Pike and others. You are provided with weight belts that are heavier than you usually require causing you to become negatively buoyant and sink to the bottom of the tanks. The large Sturgeon in this tank knowing that food is on its way, begin sucking at you constantly trying to find food. This is the reason why you are required to wear a hood, as the frisky Pike, Bass and Sturgeon won’t hesitate to take your ears off. The aquarium staff accompanying you on the dive provide you with worms and other fish feed to provide the hungry fish swarming around you un-afraid.
After snacks and refreshments, you are briefed on your second dive which is in the Shark tank. This tanks houses numerous nurse sharks, white tip sharks, black tip reef sharks, Woebegone sharks, Saw teeth, sand tigers, guitar fish, rays, turtles and various other Tangs, Stingrays, Remora. You won’t ever get to experience so many varieties of sharks in one place anywhere else in the world. The dive is intimidating with the dive masters providing a protective circle around you at all times, to fend off the constantly approaching curious shark. Feeding these huge toothy creatures is definitely an experience of a life-lime. Apparently sharks constantly loose teeth while eating and the aquarium allows you to collect the teeth of the sharks that have fallen to the bottom and keep as a souvenir of your dive. So with one eye looking downward for shark teeth and the other spinning around keeping an eye on the sharks, you finally end your dive.
There are a few things disappointing about the shark diving experience at Underwater Adventures. The rather substantial cost of $195 does not include essential Scuba diving gear such as BCDs, regulators, Scuba masks, wetsuits, dive booties or fins. The Aquarium provides you with Scuba tanks, weight, weight belts and gloves only. With only two dives, it leaves you wanting to do more, and especially disappointing is the fact that you spend both dives at the bottom of the tanks, not really swimming around.
However overall the Mall of America’s Underwater Adventures Shark Dive is definitely a unique experience, and how many people would believe you when you tell them that you dove with sharks up in Minnesota?
