Our first full day in San Francisco, we drove two hours south to Monterey to enjoy the aquarium there.
Before heading out, we caught this beautiful rainbow hanging over the city!
Sea Otters
The first show of the day was the feeding of the sea otters. It was a pretty crowded show, but it was fun to watch the antics of these rat-like creatures :o)
Kelp Forest
There are a number of really "big" tanks in the Aquarium. The first one we checked out was the sea kelp. We were able to view this tank on three different levels: ground floor, mid-way, and even from above.
Jellies
Another favorite section was the jellies, of which they had all sorts.
Tentacles
The aquarium is currently having a special exhibit called Tentacles:The Astounding Lives of Octopuses, Squid and Cuttlefishes. Coincidentally, all of our favorite things!
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| A nautilus |
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| The Giant Pacific octopus |
One of the nice features of the Monterey Aquairum is their texting alerts. At the start of the day, you can sign up to receive texts about special feedings. We managed to get over to see them feed the Giant Pacific Octopus. It wasn't quite the astounding display that we were hoping for. They placed a large, rubber ball-like thing in the water that had a hole filled with fish. The octopus grabbed the ball, brought it to his mouth, but then we were no longer able to see anything, as his tentacles completed covered the ball.
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| The Broadclub Cuttlefish |
The aquarium has a nice outside area with benches and a view of the bay. While we were relaxing there, we noticed some sea otters at play a few hundred meters out.
With Dave's new teleconverter, he was able to take some close-up, zoomed in pictures that allowed us to confirm that they were actually sea otters. See below for the zoomed and cropped version!
We also got a glimpse of this cool bird. Not sure what he is!
Other exhibits
Kyle's favorite exhbit was the "big" tank. It looks like we didn't get any photos of it, but it was essentially a huge tank that had hundred of sardines swimming around in it, as well as a few hammerheads. It was mesmerizing to sit and watch the ebb and flow of the sea creatures. Poor Kyle first started getting sick during this visit, and he wasn't feeling very well. So he spent a lot of time laying in the upper balcony of the big tank room, just watching the fish. It remains one of his fondest memories of the whole trip.
Below are some other photos Dave took of various sea creatures:
The Ride home
We left around 3:30pm and decided to take the scenic route. We had some good views of the setting sun. At one random point, we got out to enjoy the view.
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