Learning about the Fishing and Boating Industry at the Florida Aquarium

Tampa, Florida

We debarked from our cruise ship and was in Tampa at around 10:30am.

However, our plane was not departing until 7:30pm the same evening.























We had a few hours and would like to see Tampa.

The Heroes' Plaza, Tamapa, Florida, USA

However, being mindful of the traffic and not wanting to miss our flight,  we decided to stay close to the city.

The Florida Aquarium, Tampa, Florida

The Florida Aquarium is located right beside the cruise ship terminal!

I loved the seahorse in this display at the aquarium.

We did not have to take any taxi as we could just walk there with our luggage.


The aquarium even offered to store the luggage for people buying tickets to visit the aquarium.

That was convenient for us!

After dropping off our suitcases for storage, we were free to enjoy and explore all the exhibits inside the Florida Aquarium.

A group of eels at the Florida Aquarium

The things I liked about our visit to the aquarium:

1. For some part of the aquarium, I felt like I was outdoors walking on a trail.

There was sunlight shining upon us and we could see trees growing above us.

We enjoyed the outdoor like environment in the Florida Aquarium, Tamapa, USA

2. Lots to see with clear explanation on the various exhibits.

I learned a lot from the exhibits about Florida, its fishing and recreation boating industry and many other facts:

Florida is the cruise centre of the United States. Over 60% of US passengers board in a Florida port.

• Florida’s recreational boating industry has twice the economic impact of citrus.

• Florida has 14 deep water ports handling over 33 billions dollars in imports and exports.

• Florida is the fishing capital of U.S. as it has more adult anglers than any other states. Over half of the anglers in U.S. practise “catch and release” – they don’t keep what’s on their hooks.

Commercial fishing in Florida is a 300 million industry.

Saltwater fishing contributes more than 4.4 billions to the Florida economy.

People are encouraged to retrieve and recycle their fishing lines as discarded fishing lines entangle and kill thousand of birds and other wildlife every year.

"Pilings and bridge supports under bridge begin to attract life as soon as they are built.

In a few years, these surfaces are encrusted with algae, sponges, oysters and barnacles"

3. The hands on - touch and feel part was interesting.
























One of the touch and feel stations was the Stingray Beach.



















The stingray beach invited visitors to touch and feel!

























Many visitors including us enjoyed the touch and feel station especially the little ones!























I was impressed by how well the young ones followed the rules on using only two fingers to touch the animals in the water.


















4. I learned a lot about the tourism and fishing industry in Florida.








The things I did not like about our visit:















I was disappointed with the Superhero show
presented with the divers in it.






















Initially, I was excited to see the divers appearing in the presentation and expected that they would demonstrate what they normally do while down in the water, e.g.  interacting with the creatures in the aquarium such as feeding some fish or checking out something etc.

















To our disappointment, the divers did not do much.

They simply hang around while the presenter of the program talked. I found it a waste of the divers' presence there.

Do I look like a mermaid?

Other than my disappointment in the presentation, we enjoyed and learned many things during our visit to the Florida Aquarium!



R.T.
Florida Aquarium
Tampa, Florida
USA