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Leaffish are an exotic marine creature.
They are relatively small fish and come from a large family.
These fish simply remain motionless and just wave around in the current.
To other fish, this character just appears as a leafy type of thing floating around.
However, when prey enters within striking distance, the leaffish will attack with lightning speed.
Like their cousins, the frogfish and handfish, they don't really swim as they are too heavy.
Therefore, they crawl around the bottom using their hand-like fins.
They are hard to find as their experts at camouflage.
The largest in this unique family is about 38 cm.
But there are quite a few small species, such as the leaffish, that reach only 5 to 10 cm.
Another exotic marine fish is the clownfish.
These fish became famous when the movie Finding Nemo was released.
Nemo's appearance or shape was very closely related to the orange clownfish, or true clownfish,
such as the ones shown here.
The world loved Nemo, but scuba divers for years before Nemo arrived already had great fondness for these little creatures.
The clownfish is very well named as it's a real character, and will just about always put on a great show for a visiting scuba diver.
They're not at all worried about a diver's presence.
Clownfish are generally overall yellow, orange, reddish or blackish, and many show white bars or patches.
The larger species reach a length of 18 cm or 7 inches, while the smallest barely reach 10 cm or 4 inches.
There is also a rare melanistic variety that is a dark black colour with the normal white stripes.
Although not common in the wild, they are becoming more and more popular in the aquarium hobby.
Clownfish forms symbiotic relationships with sea anemones.
The clownfish feeds on undigested matter which otherwise potentially could harm the sea anemone.
In addition to providing food for the clownfish, the sea anemone also provides safety due to its poison.
The clownfish is not affected by the toxin and is safe from predators while it's within the anemone.
Just like in the movie Finding Nemo, again like in the movie Nemo living with his mum and dad in their anemone,
real clownfish live in a similar way.
Usually two kids are found with an adult male and female couple, just like the real family.
What is interesting is that both the leaffish and the clownfish can be found in shallow water.
But in some places of the world, due to geography, just a few meters away,
divers can come across huge drop-offs or walls that plummet straight down for thousands of feet or meters.
These divers are sitting on top of such a wall and are watching a passing parade of big predators like the barracuda and sharks.
These fish are found patrolling the top of the wall as these deep drop-offs are home to many species of animal and plant life.
There are always small currents that run along these walls and the currents carry nutrients for the small fish to feed from,
which means bigger fish are there to catch smaller fish and even bigger fish to catch the big fish and so on.
So walls are a great place for divers to visit.
There is always much to see on these types of dives and to many divers.
It is a really cool feeling knowing that they are in fact flying thousands of feet or meters above the ocean floor.
It really is the same as flying or being in space.
When diving on walls or drop-offs, divers must be very careful not to continually keep dropping deeper as they may find themselves deeper than they've planned.
This doesn't mean they'll sink to the bottom.
It means that they would have to change their dive plan, which is not how a dive should be done.
Divers plan their dive and dive that plan.
The skill the diver needs in this type of diving is really good buoyancy control.
This allows the diver to stay at his or her planned depth and enjoy the dive they planned for.
These divers have come across a huge school of Barracuda.
The Barracuda is known for its large size, which can be up to six feet or about two meters.
Its body is long, fairly compressed and covered with small, smooth scales.
It's found in tropical and subtropical oceans worldwide.
Barracuda occur both singly and in schools around reefs, but also appear in open seas.
They are boracious predators and hunt using a classic example of lion, weight or ambush.
They rely on surprise and short bursts of speed up to 27 miles per hour or 43 kilometers per hour to overrun their prey.
Like sharks, Barracuda's have long had a bad reputation as being dangerous to humans.
Barracuda's have been observed following snorkelers and scuba divers across a reef, which can make one feel uncomfortable.
But they are harmless and less provoked.
As Barracuda's are also scavengers, they may mistake snorkelers for large predators and follow them to scavenge the remains of any prey left after an attack.
Other fish such as these jacks can also be found patrolling the walls.
But that's another story for next time.
Aquariums are a great place to learn more about ocean dwellers and the ocean in general.
But don't think of these big aquariums as just a place to see underwater critters.
Many of these organisations also carry out much research, which helps us understand animals much better.
This is Monterey Bay Aquarium in California, and it's one of the world leaders not only as an aquarium, but also in terms of research.
To keep the animals in and the people out, some windows are 13 inches or 30 centimetres thick and are made of acrylic, a tough plastic.
About 1.8 million people visit the aquarium each year.
Yep, you can even get to touch some marine critters in specially designed touch tanks.
Don't worry, none of the touch tanks residents bite.
This is a great place to catch up with the marine dwellers and say hi.
A favourite display is the giant octopus tank.
The giant octopuses are masters of disguise, changing their skin texture and colour to blend in with their surroundings.
This is the largest species of octopus in the world.
It can grow up to nearly 30 feet long and weigh nearly 100 pounds.
The coastal wetland galleries celebrate life in Elkhorn Slough, which is one of the largest coastal wetlands in the state of California in America.
You'll find many kinds of birds, including foraging sandpipers, long-billed curloughs and blacknecked stilts.
Other exhibits let you explore and discover the wetlands' hidden nature, buried clams with siphons like snorkels and ghost shrimp that die on the mud it deems.
Take an underwater look at bat rays through periscopes or gently touch them as they swim by.
In the large outdoor rock pool exhibit, something amazing happens.
This is an area of Monterey Bay Aquarium that is special.
Here you can fall in love with the sea otter.
These creatures have been rescued.
They're animals that are no longer able to survive in the wild.
They seem quite at home in their new exhibit, where they romp, tumble, wrestle and interact like otters in the wild.
Sea otters are naturally curious. When they find a new object, they'll sniff it, pour it, pound it or play with it.
In the wild, this curiosity helps otters find and eat new foods. At the aquarium, it delights our visitors.
Imagine this is a pretty cool job. A diver in the aquarium getting paid to just hang out and feed the fish and talk to the people from underwater.
Well, this diver probably has a lot of qualifications.
But you can get started at the aquarium by trying a unique underwater adventure.
Kids ages 8 to 13 can try scuba diving, certified dive staff assist kids in the water.
No scuba experience is required, but participants must have basic swimming skills.
Did you know that Monterey Bay Aquarium has 420 employees and almost 900 volunteers?
The volunteers do everything from guiding school children through the exhibits to feeding the animals in the kelp forest.
Who knows, one day you could be a diver at the aquarium, just hanging out with the sea creatures.
But it takes a little more than being a scuba diver to make it happen.
Many sport divers go on to make a career out of diving, but they combine their sport with other qualifications.
Why don't you check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium website to learn more about getting started in a career in the underwater world.
For divers, there are few places on earth that compare to the thrills, sights and amazing wonders of a coral reef.
Their popularity as dive and snorkel sights starts with the spectacular beauty of the tropical coral garden itself.
A closer look reveals an entire world teeming with life.
In fact, coral reefs serve as the habitat and nursery ground for 25% of all known marine species, many of which we rely on for food.
Without biodiversity in mind, you can think of coral reefs as the rainforests of the sea.
First, coral reefs are vital structures, defending islands and coastal cities against damaging storms, waves and erosion.
They're also an important tourist attraction, with many tropical nations basing much of their economy on the money brought in through scuba diving and snorkeling tours.
Coral grows best in the clear, shallow waters of tropical and subtropical oceans, where the annual temperatures fall between 64 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit or 18 to 30 degrees Celsius.
Most corals are impressive buildings, and a reef is simply a massive colony of coral.
These living creatures are capable of building the largest structure on earth, Australia's Great Barrier Reef, which is visible even from space.
The reef's ecosystem is jam-packed with thousands of amazing creatures, and you can imagine how important coral reefs are, because they provide a home for all of those creatures to live in.
They also provide food for sea stars, sea cucumbers, snails, crabs, sea urchins and many types of fish.
These creatures help keep the ecosystem healthy by taking care of the housekeeping on the reef.
You can find more than 4,000 species of fish on the world's coral reef.
Many display vibrant colours and interesting patterns, while others have the ability to blend in with their reef surrounding.
The bad news is that human activity is quickly damaging and destroying the rainforests of the sea.
The good news is that people around the world are paying attention to the coral reef issues.
Programs like the Project Aware Foundation, Aware Kids and Protect the Living Reef Campaign are helping people work towards a solution.
These efforts are making a very real difference in protection to the oldest, most productive ecosystems on earth, the rainforests of the sea, the coral reefs.
This is the warm water environment, but hey, Aware Kids, travel with us as we dive into the cool waters.
Watch as the rocking shoreline slowly gives way to kelp forest communities.
Surprisingly, kelp is not a plant as you may think.
It's actually a large brown algae that grows when summertime water temperatures reach about 68 degrees Fahrenheit or 20 degrees Celsius.
Unlike a flowering plant found on land, kelp has no roots.
Instead, they attach to rocks on the ocean floor by hold-fasts, with depths ranging from 20 to 40 meters or 65 to 130 feet.
These hold-fasts anger the kelp firmly against strong ocean currents and heavy surf.
Strong ocean currents provide a constant supply of nutrients to the kelp.
This combination makes kelp the largest of all algae and helps kelp grow at a rapid speed, really seen in nature.
In fact, healthy kelp grows between 25 centimeters or 10 inches a day, while giant kelp can add up to 60 centimeters.
That's about two feet of new growth in a single day.
In recent years, we've seen a dramatic increase in the harvesting of kelp.
Kelp is collected and turned into products like fertilizer, salt and algin.
Algin is a thickener in products we buy every day, like paint and makeup, and even products you eat, like ice cream, jelly and salad dressing.
Did you know you brush your teeth with kelp? That's right, it's also found in toothpaste.
We tend to think of kelp communities as forests, as they are routed to the bottom by their hold-fasts and spread upward to reach the sunlight.
Also, their blades spread wide to form a broad canopy.
These canopies block light from reaching the bottom and provide a welcome habitat for shade adapted algae.
These blades also provide a home for animals in a kelp forest.
You can get crabs, worms and snails that wander over the blades while other creatures like sea slugs feed on the kelp itself.
You'll also find other types of algae growing on the blades of larger kelp.
Kelp provides food for creatures like sea urchins and a habitat for fish that feed on kelp forest residents or use it for shelter.
Sea otters are found in the kelp forests of the North Pacific Ocean.
By feasting on sea urchins, sea otters help maintain a healthy balance in the kelp forest.
Sea urchins also eat right through the kelp's hold-fast, detaching the kelp, that then get swept away by the ocean currents.
For divers, kelp forests make awesome dive sites.
Divers feel like they're flying through a dense forest of trees, with the excitement of not knowing what they'll find around the next stop.
Add to that the amazing variety of marine life and the stunning sight of sun rays streaming through the canopies.
A day spent diving among the kelp is one of the very best dives ever experienced.
Now it's time to say hi to the Patty Seal team.
Ready to get started?
Yeah!
We're the Patty Seal team, the scuba team just for kids like you and me.
Right, to become a Patty Seal you complete five aquamissions.
They're underwater scuba dives with an instructor.
You learn to be a real diver, and it's fun, isn't it, Alano?
Yeah, you learn to float like you're weightless, to read your air gauge, give hand signals, and a whole bunch of things that you'll need to know when you're a diver.
After these five aquamissions, ta-da! You're a Patty Seal!
And that's just the start. Tell them what's next, blade.
After you're a Patty Seal team member, you get to do even cooler aquamissions, like diving on a sunken boat, finding your way with an underwater compass, and searching for stuff that's lost underwater.
Making the Patty Seal teams only the start. Now you get to do really cool aquamissions.
Ever wonder what it's like to be an astronaut working in space?
There's an aquamission where you practice being an astronaut weightless in space.
As always, you're right again, Seal team.
The space mission is a great mission to practice a term called 'peak buoyancy', which is a skill that is required when divers dive on walls like we saw earlier.
It's very easy for divers in this type of environment, with maybe thousands of feet or meters below them, to actually slip deeper and deeper and end up too deep.
So, to fly, or to be like an astronaut who is weightless, the diver has to have good buoyancy control.
During another aquamission, you see what it's like to visit a sunken ship. You get to measure it and make a map of it.
Recs are cool, but in my favourite aquamission, you learn about different aquatic animals. And it's fun. You swim or crawl like they do.
Do you understand how they think? And blade? Yeah.
Octopus do not suck your brains out.
Actually, octopus are really smart, but they're shy and high during the day. They don't grab divers.
There are many aspects to scuba diving, but one of the greatest is the ease in which we can approach the sea creatures.
Unlike many land-dwelling animals that are very skittish when approached, most sea creatures have no fear of us, and under the water, we can really get close to most of the critters and even play with them.
Sometimes they will even approach the divers, as many are just as curious of us as we are of them.
Believe it or not, it's usually the sharks that are the most timid, but we must always remember we are the visitors, and we need to be aware of a few things.
You might get to see coral, like this. It's beautiful and looks as tough as a rock. But it's not.
Coral is actually thousands of tiny animals. They're so small, just touching them can hurt or kill them.
On the patty seal team, we have a rule. Look at the coral, but don't touch it.
You'll see lots of wonderful things underwater, but we're just guests, so when we visit, we don't want to hurt anything.
Cool team, we'll catch up again next time for some more great diving tips. Catch ya.
Okay, we've got an aquamission, so we're headed out.
The water is calling.
Hey, we'll see you soon, underwater, on the patty seal team.
Hooray, patty!
To order a DVD or video of this program, call 1-800-876-2447 or visit our website at www.chiptailor.com.