Monteray Bay Aquarium- CA. Day #1

Sunday, July 15th, 2012  Monteray Bay Aquarium, Monteray,  CA.

We woke up in Merced, CA. at a Holiday Inn Express.  We had a wonderful hot breakfast which we enjoyed immensely.  A blessing that we have enjoyed is that Jonathan has seemed to be able to tolerate food with eggs or milk that have been cooked.  He is enjoying the waffles, pancakes, muffins and some pastries.  This has been so nice that he can get good food and be nice and full.  

 We had about a 2 hour drive to Monteray, Ca and the scenery was gorgeous....lots of fields, fruit trees and fruit stands.  We did stop at a fruit stand and got some fresh fruit: oranges, nectarines, plums.  The huge, juicy oranges were 17 cents a piece...mmmm. 

 Finally, we had our first view of the Pacific Ocean- it was gorgeous and we were glad to arrive at the aquarium as this was one of our most anticipated stops of the trip.  This aquarium is world famous and they have been one of the only places that has a Great White shark program.  They helped injured sharks and then  release them back into the ocean.  Unfortunately, they did not have a great white shark at this time.  The aquarium is beautiful and right on the ocean.  We had fun walking around for a short time but we had signed Joshua, Christopher and Jonathan up for a Underwater Adventures experience and it was time to get started.  They were going to teach the boys how to scuba-dive and let them swim in the tidal pool that is connected to the ocean.  SO COOL! 

 

The cove that the boys were swimming in.

The instructors gave them instructions on how to use the equipment and started getting them dressed for the ocean.  The temperature here was 65 degrees ( I did not think it would be so cool in CA) and the water temperature was 53degrees.  The boys put all fleece clothing on and then came the dry suit, special gear for their head, gloves, socks and flippers.   It took awhile to get everything on and then came the air tank, masks and regulators.  The class was small so the boys had an instructor all to themselves.

Christopher taking a break to give mom a
picture.

The boys like learning how to use the regulators and had some lessons on how to use their suits.  While the instructors get most of the air out of the suits, there is still some in them and it helps to make them float, but it can also make it difficult to move where you want to move to.
The boys did really well with catching on and loved it.  Joshua wants to take scuba lessons now.  They saw all kinds of things in the tidal pool:  crabs, starfish, sea anemones, a monkey-faced eel of some sort (never knew there was one) and many more creatures.  They were in the water about 45 minutes and had a great time. 

When they entered the water, they could feel how cold it was.  Jonathan said that his hands and feet were the most cold.  They loved it and were all smiles when they got out of the water, although shivering.  We were still dressed in shorts and t-shirts....everyone else had jeans and fleece on.  We need to adjust to a temperature change here.  The boys were treated to some great hot chocolate and we are so glad that they had an opportunity to do this in such a beautiful place.



Time to warm up!



 Annika was patiently waiting while her brothers were doing this and we would sneak into the aquarium every once in a while to check out the touch pool, which ended up being one of her favorite parts.  She loved touching the sea cucumbers, starfish, anemones, urchins (they will actually grab onto your finger and not let go...like giving a big hug).  We spent a good amount of time at this spot over these 2 days.

We walked around the aquarium for another 2 hours:  a special exhibit was The Open Ocean.  It is a immense tank with huge tuna, lots of different sharks, sea turtle and just so many different sea creatures.  This was by far Joshua's favorite spot and he spent much of his time here. 

Well, we were starting to get hungry so we decided to hit the Fisherman's Wharf.  It was a wonderful spots with lots of free samples of food, good smells, great views of the ocean and marina and just lots of fun.  We ate at a great restaurant and even got a free sample of calamari. It was OK but not a favorite of anyones.  Most of us had Fish & Chips, which was a favorite!  We loved walking around seeing all the boats and watching the sea lions on their floats.  While our original plan had not been to stay in Monteray for two days, we had so much more we wanted to see and do at the aquarium, we decided to sleep here and come back again tomorrow.  We stayed at a Clarion Hotel and we were actually all asleep by 10:30pm which was wonderful!