A window by the bay

MONTEREY, Calif. – 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, reaching for a knife.

This is how the day begins at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Before this one is over, 2,881 visitors will troop through, that young shark will fill up on a mere 3 1/2 pounds of fish, the albatross will dance with a new friend.

And the jellyfish expert will get stung, which happens about three times a week.

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 Pacific 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 for anomalies.

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 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, 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.

Although the number of accredited aquariums in the U.S. has increased from 18 to 40 since Monterey Bay opened, it remains the only one to successfully exhibit great white sharks, and it has pioneered the display of jellyfish and deep-sea animals.

Moreover, with its advice on what seafoods consumers should eat and chefs should serve, the aquarium has taken an influential role in the debate over sustainable fishing practices.

“They do a great job of balancing the crowd-pleasing with the rigor of the education and conservation programs,” says Kristin Vehrs, executive director of the Maryland-based Association of Zoos & Aquariums.

It takes an array of people and hardware to keep the place running, including 420 workers and about 1,250 active 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.

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.

With them swim half a dozen needle-thin barracuda, about 100 mackerel, a pair of Galapagos sharks and about a dozen yellowfin and bluefin tuna, which can weigh up to 600 pounds – and can occasionally swim right into the wall.

Up above the tank, Manny Ezcurra, the associate curator of sharks and rays, is thinking about one big swimmer in particular. He affixes a mackerel to a line on a pole and drags it along the top of the water.

“If she’s hungry …” he starts to say, and a toothy maw breaks the surface, grabs the fish, then dips below.

This is the great white shark that came to the aquarium on Aug. 26, a 5-foot, 3-inch, 85-pound juvenile female. She’s expected to stay several months before being released into the wild.

Ezcurra strings up another mackerel, and there’s a meek little splash, a flash of teeth, and the shark grabs again. And again. Soon five mackerel are gone.

Salmon was a favorite among the four other great whites the aquarium has briefly housed. But this one, “she just spits them out,” says Ezcurra. “She just likes the mackerel.”

Meanwhile, many tourists duck into the aquarium’s Portola restaurant or the self-service cafe for lunch. Others fan out among the many family-friendly chain eateries and retailers along Cannery Row.

About 1:30 p.m., as many visitors return, Ezcurra climbs up to feed the great white again, which makes it 3 1/2 pounds of mackerel for the day.

Meanwhile, bird specialist Eric Miller wheels his biggest client out to a public area on a cart. It looks like a sea gull, but bigger, with a wingspan of 5 1/2 feet. It’s a Laysan albatross, nicknamed Makana, that suffered a damaged wing at a tender age.

When able-bodied, these birds routinely fly staggering distances – crossing as many as 550 miles of Pacific Ocean in a day – partly because they apparently can sleep while gliding.

But this bird, whose wing cannot be mended, has spent two-thirds of her life at the aquarium. She seems to enjoy interaction with visitors, and her keepers are eager to keep her busy with “enrichment” activities – but for visitors, there is a risk.

Frequently and without warning, Makana spews “super salty bird snot,” Miller warns the gathering crowd, which stops creeping forward.

But Makana can be counted on to dance, even with a perfect stranger.

Some call it a mating dance.

But it’s more like speed-dating. You stand a foot away from her, eye to eye, and she bobs her head. And chirps.

You do the same. This spurs more zealous bobbing and chirping, and then Makana leans back to howl like a coyote at the moon.

Next, Makana clacks her bill – a startling display of jaw-rattling that sounds like a snare drum falling down the stairs. It’s riveting and a little scary. So ends the date.

At 2:30 p.m., jellyfish specialist Chad Widmer stands in his lab. Jellyfish were not Widmer’s first career – not long after graduating high school in 1988, he found himself driving a tank for the Army – but they are his vocation now.

He played a key role in assembling Monterey Bay’s striking jellyfish displays and has written a “how-to” jellyfish book for aquarium people. He has tasted krill (“it’s sweet; it bursts in your mouth”) and, with all the jellies he handles, he expects three good stings per week.

At 6 p.m., a polite female voice takes over the public-address system: “Ladies and gentlemen, the Monterey Bay Aquarium is now closed.”

But the volunteer divers in the kelp forest are not quite done. With bubbles streaming skyward, they tiptoe about like space-walking astronauts. One, peering out the acrylic window, raises a hand in what seems a goodbye salute.

But it isn’t really. He’s just working on the window with a nonabrasive cloth, because these things cloud up, and the sea never sleeps.