MONTEREY — Dawn is coming soon. The lights are off, the sound system silent and the beasts of the Monterey Bay Aquarium have the place mostly to themselves: the otters, the anemones, the octopuses, the great white shark in the big tank, the lame young albatross in its rooftop cage — and Kacey Kurimura, who's at the kitchen sink in her apron and waterproof boots.
Maybe the sea never sleeps, but this is how the day begins at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Before this one is over, 2,881 visitors will troop through.
But first, Kurimura has to do her thing. Beginning about
6 a.m., she whips up more than 200 pounds of food: krill for the anchovies and sardines; chopped clams and fish heads for the mackerel; capelin and night smelt for the penguins; shrimp and squid for the bat rays; and restaurant-grade, wild-caught Alaskan salmon for the great white shark, which will choose mackerel instead.
About 7 a.m., three hours before the doors open to the public, senior systems operator Harold "Budj" McDill makes his morning rounds.
The aquarium life-support system can be run remotely for hours on end — with a laptop and a good Wi-Fi connection, McDill and his colleagues can monitor 10,000 data points — but you can't beat the value of a stroll around the property. McDill crisscrosses the building's concrete bowels, checking pump housings.
Somebody has cued up the music — a stew of swelling atmospheric tones that the aquarium commissioned years ago from composer John Huling. The lights come up, so the tank backdrops have that deep blue infinity glow and the quotes on the walls are illuminated, including this one from natural science writer Loren Eiseley: "If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water."
The Monterey Bay Aquarium opened 25 years ago this week, paid for with about $55 million from computer mogul David Packard and his wife, Lucile. It was built on the 3.3-acre site of the old Hovden Cannery on Monterey's Cannery Row and was dramatically expanded in 1996, then renovated again in 2005. The aquarium has become one of the state's leading tourist attractions, drawing about 1.8 million visitors a year.
Some of the reasons for the aquarium's popularity are as obvious as a dozen orange jellyfish hovering before a vivid blue background. Others become clearer with a glimpse behind the scenes. It takes an array of people and hardware to keep the place running, including 420 workers and about 1,250 volunteers.
The water comes straight from the bay, about 2,000 gallons a minute, sucked in through one of two 16-inch intake pipes, then filtered and piped throughout the aquarium, mostly at the ambient temperature of the bay's water. This morning, it's 54 degrees.
Ten minutes before the 10 a.m. opening, guest experience ambassadors Nancy Larkin and Korina Sanchez delicately scoop a few little jellyfish into tubes and carry them out to show visitors as they wait in line.
"Welcome," says Larkin, facing the day's first customers. "I'm going to help you figure out what to do today."
At 11 a.m., it's time to throw food into the big Outer Bay tank — 85 pounds of it, tossed from above into
1.2 million gallons of sea water, setting off a flurry of darting, shoving, dodging and snapping among the fish. To watch, visitors gather on two levels, packed several deep — but not as densely as the thousands of sardines that swim together like a shimmering silver cloud on the other side of the acrylic window.
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