Happy Hallowmarine: Scuba Diver Carves Pumpkins Underwater Among Sharks

A school of 20 sleek, fast-moving blacktip reef sharks may elicit a few frights all year-round, but even the marine life of Baltimore’s National Aquarium’s new Blacktip Reef Exhibit deserve a special treat this Halloween. An under-water pumpkin carving for “Hallowmarine” on Thursday, October 31, will give the 700+ animals of Blacktip Reef — which opened this summer — a Halloween show of their own with delicious pumpkins carved into the likeness of some of the 65 species in the $12.5 million aquarium. Visitors will judge the best underwater pumpkin carvings of sharks, fish, and the exhibit’s resident matriarch, the 500+ pound sea turtle Calypso, as part of the aquarium’s Halloween celebrations. The pumpkins themselves will be quickly devoured by the exhibit’s marine life, which also includes 5-foot wide whiprays, camouflaged ornate wobbegong sharks, and the aquarium’s beloved zebra sharks Zeke and Zoe. The underwater Jack-o-Lanterns will be viewable from a 27-foot viewing window that curves four feet into the underwater reef itself.