A new direction - A Fascination for Fish: Adventures of an Underwater Pioneer - page 312

In 1994 I was asked to consult with the Two Oceans Aquarium in
Cape Town, South Africa. I jumped at the opportunity, in large part
because it marked my first return to the country of my birth. Apart
from helping with the aquarium design, I would be able to see the coun-
try now that the oppressive policy of apartheid had ended.
In many ways South Africa is physically similar to California. Both
have a Mediterranean climate, with wet winters and hot, dry sum-
mers, and around the Cape of Good Hope there is upwelling of cool,
nutrient-rich water, which, as in California, produces an abundant
growth of marine algae. A key element in the plan for the new aquar-
ium was a living kelp forest. We came up with a design incorporating
the same parameters that make our Kelp Forest exhibit in Monterey
so successful: exposure to the sun, a surge machine to produce water
movement, and a continuous supply of cool, nutrient-rich water.
I spent a week in design meetings and was invited to spend a cou-
ple of days with Geo¤rey Starke, the project director, and his wife at
their beach house. The morning following my arrival the beach was
littered with masses of many di¤erent varieties of kelp broken loose by
the big waves of a midwinter storm. We went fishing in the kelp bed
and caught a number of bluefish ( Pomatomus saltatrix )—the very same
species found on the Atlantic Coast of the United States. Geo¤ hooked
and, after quite a battle, released a five-foot-long sevengill shark—the
same species we had in the Monterey Bay Aquarium. This wasn't a shark
we wanted to bring into Geo¤ 's little fourteen-foot boat.
I enjoyed working with the talented, dedicated, and friendly people
at the Two Oceans Aquarium. Betty and I returned to Cape Town in
1996 for its grand opening and took the opportunity to explore some
of the country.
Consulting on the South Carolina Aquarium in Charleston proved
a unique experience. One day in 1989 I got a call from architect An-
toine Predock in New Mexico asking if I would participate with him
and Richard Graef of Ace Design in Sausalito, California, in a design
charette competition for the proposed aquarium. Richard and I had
worked together in the past, and I was impressed with his work; I'd
never heard of Antoine, but I would get to know and like him by the
end of what turned out to be an intense four days.