What lies beneath

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Damian Reilly visits the aquarium at the Atlantis hotel in Dubai.

What a wonderful thing a good aquarium is. London's is pitiful. All cramped looking fish behind glass smeared by the hands of ten thousand children a day.  It's dank, expensive and depressing

Dubai's newest aquarium, opened recently at the Atlantis hotel on the Palm, is superb. It is the best 70 dirhams you can spend in town. Hard to get to, though.

The guards at the gate to the hotel seem amazingly keen not to allow entrance to the hotel to mere members of the public. Best to ignore their exhortations to stop and explain yourself, and instead just drive straight up to the entrance, where the valet service will do the rest.

Once you're in, go left and don't look back. You'll come to some steps. Scurry down those, and there it is, a screen into the massive tank. You'll find it impossible not to tarry here - it's an incredible view - but my advice is to keep going, round to the right, away from the milling, open mouthed crowd.

At the entrance to the aquarium there will inevitably be a queue. I went on Friday afternoon, so it was probably longer than it would normally be, but it moved very fast, so don't be disheartened. Pony up your 70 dirhams when directed, and then you're in.

The aquarium has been named The Sunken Chamber, and you can imagine, from such a moniker, the vibe the interior designers have gone for. But they have done it quite well. Scrub that. They have done it very well.

The only thing missing, in this observer's estimation, is information about what you are looking at. In the absence of that information, I am afraid you are going to have to put up with my non-technical descriptions of the marine life I witnessed.

The first exhibit, beyond the cylindrical eddy of medium sized silver fish at the entrance, is two tanks for jelly fish under ultraviolet light, against a black backdrop. I'll bow to no man in my dislike of the little stinging wasps of the sea, but from the safety of this vantage point, it is impossible not to admire their beauty.

That odd swimming motion, surely useless in the ocean's currents, is soothing to watch. And under this lighting, their fringes and tendrils, which stretch out beneath them, are revealed as remarkably delicate and complicated designs.

Surely there is a celestial design team? Further exploration of the aquarium only convinces me more.

Move past those, and come to a selection of corals, again, superbly lit to show off their colours to optimum advantage. There are lobsters, too, but they look like vicious little thugs, and are not the most exciting exhibit, given that they seem to reside mainly on the bottom of their tank and duff each other up.

There are some eels, too, or big sea snakes, that are breathtaking for the leopard-like deigns of their skin. These are glamorous creatures, whatever they are, and they know it. Mainly, they strike attitudes and poses, hanging from the little caves that have been built for them up the sides of their tank.

Later there are starfish which can be touched, mainly by squealing children, but I would leave these poor creatures in peace, if I were you. It doesn't seem kind to poke them and then scream.

Move round instead to the magnificent massive grey fish with a face like the clang of a bell, surely something from prehistoric times. You can't miss him; he is startlingly huge, with wonderful melancholic features.

There are Nemo fish, too, so brilliantly vibrant. And some even brighter fish. But I am using up my word count, and I want to get on to the headline act, before she leaves Dubai.

The tanks I have so far described ineptly are sideshows, home to fish that presumably don't play too well with the other kids, or get eaten by them. The rest of the fish all reside in an enormous tank, the size of a big villa, which the public can walk right around.

In there, gangs of fish cruise and lurk. There is incredible variety. Big rays flap about elegantly, moving smoothly through the scene. What appear to be small sharks also move menacingly, generally a good two thirds of the way up toward the surface. Shoals of smaller fish shimmer excitingly this way and that.

And, then, there she is, moving into view across the top of the tank, a jolt of electricity passes through the crowd...  Sammy the massive whale shark swims at the surface, with a fin up above the water, attended by an entourage of flunkies.

She is an awesome sight, regardless of whether or not she should be in this tank (of course she should not be). Rush to see her, because she is rare and magnificent.

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