To the Aquarium!

   Kelley had the brilliant idea for Mom, Kristin, herself and I to head down to Long Beach on my Birthday Eve to see the Aquarium of the Pacific. And it was quite a treat, with a wide variety of animals and top-notch exhibits. I'll do my best to share what we saw, but it turns out it's difficult to shoot fast-moving fish through glass in low light. (Note to self: get better at that!)

   My whole life I've been fascinated by animals. And with my inability to swim, I wasn't sure I'd ever get the chance to explore the creatures that live in the depths of the ocean. But now that I've overcome my fear and gotten a taste of what's out there, I can't get enough. The aquarium was a great chance to be guaranteed to see an incredible variety of fish, and only made me more ready for my next adventure.

Life-size whale in the lobby:

Kelley gets a great shot of a sea lion:

Kristin likes it already!

The variety of fish was incredible, from the subtly-colored specimen:

To the brightly-color Copperband butterflyfish:

Yellow puffer fish:

Brilliantly-colored anemone:

Yellow tang:

And blue tang, with Percula clownfish and Ocellaris clownfish:

Pennant butterflyfish:

Clown triggerfish:

This was one of the most colorful shows in the whole place:

Incredible anemone:

   Some of the setups were dark and dramatic. These fish were bigger than me!

A hawkfish and his friend...

A tiny garden eel. Saw these on my dive in Maui down at 70'!

There were several different kinds of rays:

They had a great range of jellies, too:

And a variety of sea horses, including the leafy sea dragon:

One tank contained an incredible variety of live coral:

Colorful anemone:

A sneaky scorpionfish:

A showy lionfish:

From the small shrimp...

   To the giant spider crab. I first saw these at the Osaka aquarium. They're really enormous and slow moving, and they look like they're from another planet. (Delicious, though, I bet!)

A cow-nosed ray:

Can't wait to get in there and dive!!!