ah AHHHHHHH!: Monterey Bay Aquarium!

Finally we were headed to Monterey Bay Aquarium. This was the destination I was most excited about. It was recently remodeled. They did a very good job. It is now one of my favorite aquariums that I've been too. Here's a picture of the bay it is in. They actually pump thousands of gallons a minute from the ocean to circulate through their exhibits.

Some otters:

It's hard to tell but this is a tiny red shrimp. Really cool.

Beware MOM of this picture, I made it smaller so you have to click it to see what it is. (it's a snake) These snakes were just born. In fact they were only a few hours out of their shells. These snakes are neat because they actually hung from above for fish. Once a fish is near the surface they attack. It's really cool.

Some cool tree frogs:

Purple Firefish (my favorite)

Pajama Cardinalfish (I have had these in my home aquarium for years now) They are so cool looking. Like 3 fish put together.

The sea horse exhibit they had was amazing. Some of the things they have done, such as raising sea horses is a recent feat. These creatures are very fragile and easily stressed but they pull it off. Here are some BABIES! yes babies!

This sea horse was enormous. Well from a sea horse point of view. (like 6 inches tall)

The aquarium's tanks were very cool. They used a lot of curved glass and crazy shapes.

Me next to a sea horse. This one is fake....haha.

One of the aquarium's most prized exhibits is the Kelp Forest. Kelp is very important. The algen inside of the kelp is used in things such as toothpaste.

We viewed a feeding. Here's the frenzy:

Here's the volunteer who gives a presentation and answers questions during the feeding:

Like many of today's aquariums this one had the touching pond. Pretty cool.

Here are some smaller kelp exhibits.

Huge abalone:

This outside exhibit was to demonstrate tide pools. You can see the bubbles from all the crashing of the water against the rocks.

The stream inside connects to the tide pool outside to demonstrate how fresh water rivers end in the ocean. Also shows the salmon and stuff fighting the current to swim upstream to spawn.

some cool ducks

Another unique part of this aquarium is their use of Anchovies and Sardines. Most of the larger exhibits have schools of Anchovies and Sardines. Yes these are two different fish. They transfer them around as the school is depleted.

Here's a video of them close up. Some swim with the mouths open to filter out food from the water. Try watching the video in HQ for a clearer video.

Here's another exhibit that has a school of anchovies/sardines. This exhibit was huge and is called beyond the bay. It has some really cool fish such as tunas, barracuda, dolphins (the fish not the mammal), and many other cool fish. They have had great whites, sea turtles, half moon fish in the exhibit but those animals are seasonal, and unfortunately were not there when I visited.