North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores

Director’s Update

October 2005

The NEW Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores is taking shape, as workers continue their march toward completion. The building is now “dried in,” a term builders often use to indicate that the roofing is watertight, allowing installation of sheetrock wall boards. As the sheetrock has gone up, many rooms, offices and galleries have taken on their final appearance. As staff and architects complete their inspections, we get a real sense of the visitor’s journey through our five galleries, “from the mountains to the sea.”

Many of the electrical, mechanical, and plumbing systems are in place, and preparations are under way to start up these systems in the coming months. Air handlers are being prepped to begin circulating air, and the all-important main electrical power feed for the building will be installed soon. The new waste treatment plant, which recently has been the subject of local media attention, will be operational within a few weeks.

Hurricane Ophelia did not harm the construction, though high winds battered the area for more than 30 hours. The Aquarium’s dock on Bogue Sound was hit hard, but repairs of will begin soon. Fortunately, however, the building suffered no damage.

In recent days, one very visible addition has been the entrance plaza canopy, a large roof structure that provides cover for visitors as they come and go from the Aquarium. Other recent work includes the steel and fabric framework for the Smoky Mountain waterfall, a massive interior display formed to look like a mountain gorge. Soon, sprayed concrete will be applied to the form, then sculpted to look like chiseled rock. Most all of the exhibit tanks are now on site, and in the coming months windows and decorative inserts will be added. Graphic panels are in production, ceramic tile work begins soon, painting has begun in some work areas—the list of individual tasks goes on.

At the Aquarium’s off-site offices in Atlantic Beach, there was much excitement in September, when three new specimens arrived: 7-foot-long sand tiger sharks. The sharks were collected off Delmarva Peninsula and transported by truck to Atlantic Beach. All three are in good health, and will be housed in the Aquarium’s 30,000-gallon holding tank until they can be moved into the 306,000-gallon “Living Shipwreck” exhibit next spring.