Liquid Blue

The last part of our recent trip to San Francisco was a day trip to Monterey Bay Aquarium. This was a particular request of mine, so Ian's girlfriend, Clio, offered her car to drive all four of us down there, about two hours south of San Francisco, to check out some beautiful aquatic creatures.

The town, itself, is also charming so we started out with lunch at a popular local restaurant on the boardwalk, a mini version of San Francisco's Pier 39.

The aquarium was packed. It was a Saturday so families with kids were everywhere. It often required a bit of patience to get to an exhibit, especially when it was feeding time for the penguins, so eventually we worked our way to the cepholopods.

This octopus was just chilling on the glass. Front side and back side.

Here's a quirky favorite of mine, the tiny and peculiar Cuttlefish. Apparently the smaller male cuttlefish can pretend to be a female fish in order to avoid being attacked by a larger one, but then will zoom right in and mate with the female right under the other male's nose, er, face tentacles. Pretty crafty.

Lots of schools of silvery fish being mesmerizing.

 

The ever cranky Moray Eel:

Of course, one of the most popular exhibits is the big sea otter tank. They can be seen at the lower level sweeping through the water, and at the top level, surfacing, or in the case of this fuzzy face, grabbing its' blankie and going behind a rock for a nap. They also live in the ocean just outside, along with seals, who are frequently seen sunning on the rocks.

My surprising favorite exhibit, though, was the jellyfish. Their gorgeous colours and wispy ethereal quality were both soothing and hypnotic to watch. Even shot with just my cell phone camera they looked dazzling, the most photogenic of all the sea life there.

Here's their official website: http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/

They are also on Facebook, Tumblr, and Instagram, often posting cute photos of their ocean friends.

And of course you can buy local souvenirs like this: