Trip to Monetery Bay Aquarium

Feb 5, 2006 :

Monterey Bay is about 90 miles from Sunnyvale, CA - a drive of about 1.5 hrs. We had been to Monterey several times but never to its famous aquarium. We decided to drive down to Monetery and see the aquarium. The aquarium opens at 9:30 A.M on weekends and wanting to arrive there as soon as it opens we started early in the morning. We reached there little after 9:00 A.M and it urned out to be a good thing since finding parking close to the Aquarium would have become a nightmare if we had arrived late.

There is a Beaver pond close to the entrance and luckily for us it was their feeding time when they are particuarly happy.
Its a lot of fun watching beaver, particularly when they are playful mood. They are rolling around and floating on their backs, in a ver lazy relaxed sort of way. Sometimes I wish I could be like a beaver.

The anchovies are on the other hand nothing like the Beavers, always on a rush to be somewhere. There was a tank of anchovies and they were simply swimming round and round restlessly in their limited world!

Perhaps the most interesting collection in then Aquarium is that of the Jelly fish. They are truly amazing creatures and it is hard to believe they do not have a brain or rather a brain similar to as we do. There are Jelly fish of all sorts of colors and sizes here. Looking at them is almost hypnotic as they move slowly, you can keep staring at them for hours.

Some of the Jelly fish are really large and their heads span almost a feet or more across. There are hundreds of small baby Jelly fish that keeps swimming (if you can call that swimming) together.

There a section on sea anemone and other sea plant life that is riot of colors. Some of them wait until a stray unaware prey comes along and then trap it as it enters the fronds. It makes you wonder, how much beauty we miss by living on land. There are also several different kinds of very colorful starfish. The variety of sea-life and the number of things you can discover in each tank is simply amazing.

"Finding Nemo" has really changed every kids and even adults perception of fish. Ofcourse today every aquarium must have a Dory (a Regal Blue Tang), a Marlin (an Ocellaris Clown Fish) , Gill (a Moorish Idol) , Jaques (a Pacific Cleaner Shrimp) and so on. All the children were extremely excited to see their favourite animated characters alive in front of them - why them even we were!


A large sleepy eel rested peacefully camouflaged among the rocks. A Bass saunters about lazily. There was also a giant octopus - this we (Aparna and I) had never seen before in real life. There is also a nice sea bird section.

After the aquarium we had luch in Moentery and then continued our drive on the PCH and drove down until Big Sur, enjoying the spectacular views of the ocean. We briefly stopped at a beach near Carmel by the Sea and got ourselves wet. In the evening the ocean became misty providing for some spectacular views. It was a great way to spend the day!