The tunnel then angles off into a dramatic 275,000-gallon area called Halibut Flats. A sunken fiberglass ship rests on the rocks, providing a home for colorful rockfish and a suggestion of what a diver might find just offshore. Walking above the sandy sea floor, visitors can see a stunning variety of fish below, including graceful California bat rays, Pacific halibut and big skates. Above, other animals glide by, including sturgeon, Pacific cod, rockfish, skilfish and schooling sablefish. After another transitional area, visitors walk into the largest, most impressive exhibit, the 850,000-gallon Open Sea.
Large sharks swim by slowly, receding into the seemingly limitless distance.
A school of spiny dogfish sharks surrounds the tube, giving a sense of a crowded underwater world. The vast variety of the deep sea is suggested by the soupfin, leopard, sixgill and sevengill sharks, with large fish such as mackerel, coaststriped bass, coho and chinook salmon. As visitors leave the long tunnel, more interpretive graphics relate to the Open Sea experience. The gallery leading out of the exhibit treats visitors to the sight of the 21-foot beaked whale skeleton suspended overhead. A video replays scenes from the construction of the new exhibits.