Reisers at Monterey Bay Aquarium

April 1, 1998

Today was our last day at Monterey Bay Aquarium. We went back to see a few things we missed before, and some things that we wanted to see again. One of our favorite visits was the giant Open Ocean tank. The picture you see is of the Ocean Sun Fish, an unusual looking, very large, graceful fish that swims slowly around the huge tank.. He was very shy, and the only one in the tank. He was also a favorite of many visitors, so we had to try many times to get a good picture. The Sun Fish gets its name from its habit of laying on its side near the surface to bask in the sun

The Open Ocean tank sports the world's largest aquarium window. The window is more than one foot thick, over fifty-six feet wide. It is made of acrylic, and weighs thirty-nine tons. The thank was almost as large as our whole house, upstairs and downstairs, put together. There were many open ocean fish in the tank, including a school of Pacific Bonito that had to keep swimming all the time or they would suffocate.

We visited the touch pool, where we could touch different animals that live near the shore, like starfish, decorator crabs, and even bat rays. We got to see more of the cute otters, and even saw one in the wild off shore eating a starfish.

Amanda learned that adult sea otters can live up into their twentys in the aquarium, but we don't know how long they live in the wild. The otters were my favorite part of the aquarium. People throw junk in the oceans and the fish and anemones live and grow on the junk. The junk can be a habitat for some animals. We still should not throw junk into the oceans, because it does hurt many other animals.

Harrison's favorite part of the aquarium was the "Sea Gooseberry Jellies." These look like little balls with two tentacles. When it wants to eat it spreads out its tentacles into a net shape and its food gets caught. Then in pulls the tentacles up and rolls around to eat. We taped the gooseberries eating. If you want to watch them, you can come to our house sometime.

Harrison also checked out a piece of a whale jaw with the "baleen" it uses to filter krill to eat.

The weather was beautiful today. The air was crisp and clean, after yesterday's rains. Temperature was about 56 degrees. Thanks for letting us share our discoveries with you.

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