Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Shark dive in Dubai Aquarium

While attending the TESOL Arabia 2011 conference in Dubai, I made a quick rendezvous to the Dubai Mall on Thursday, March 10. Despite being a great opportunity to ride the Dubai metro for the first time, considering my phobia for shopping malls, this may have seemed a rather strange choice to spend the day. However, the real reason was to go scuba diving in the mall’s eye-catching aquarium. A 40-minute dip with the sea-creatures costs a whopping 625 Emirati dirhams (US $170). But perhaps the biggest catch (and one I only found out about when I arrived to check in) is that NO UNDERWATER CAMERAS are permitted! After much internal mental debate, I finally decided to go ahead and dive, and my brother Dusty agreed to do the camera-work using my Sony Eriksson mobile phone. In the end, I guess it was all worth it. The world’s largest world's "largest acrylic panel" is filled with some 33,000 marine animals. Amongst these being all sort of sting rays, napoleon humpheads, sand tiger sharks, lemon sharks, guitar fish, etc. , etc…. and of course one of my all-time favorite animals, the hammerhead shark! Check out the video that Dusty shot below, musical accompaniment provided by MGMT, “Siberian Breaks”.