Monterey Bay Aquarium

We joined the hordes of people on the road this weekend and made our way South to Monterey. Fortunately for us it was only about 90 miles and took about an hour and a half. It was well worth the trip; the Monterey Bay Aquarium highlights the unique local marine habitat and it piqued my interest in fish.

One of the many exhibits is the Outer Bay tank which holds over a million gallons of seawater. This tank contains many species of fish, familiar and not so familiar. One of the weirder ones is the Ocean Sunfish. It's the very large 'head' swimming by in the second picture.

The jellyfish are another big attraction at the aquarium. So graceful yet alien in their movements, I could watch them all day. These are the Black Sea Nettles, their stinging tentacles can grow 25 feet long or more. Yikes.

Perhaps the signature tank at MBA is the two-story kelp forest tank. This is truly local habitat for the Northern California coastline. The water comes directly from the ocean and is filtered during the day so we can see all the happy creatures inside. At night the water is left unfiltered and as such contains food for many of the creatures to eat. Neato.

The drive home took about the same amount of time, but we had to divert through Santa Cruz because of holiday traffic. No worries though, I slept the whole way. It was a good day for the family.