It was another grey and rainy day, so Henry and I decided to head off into town to spend the morning at the Oregon Coast Aquarium. We love aquariums, and take every opportunity to visit one together. It's tradition.

Located in the shadow of the Yaquina Bay Bridge, we parked at the Aquarium and jogged with hoods up to the entrance to avoid the drizzle.

The aquarium was beautiful and well laid out, both inside and outside. We hadn't really anticipated a large portion of the exhibits being outside in the rain! 

We learned that the aquarium had been the original home of Keiko, the orca and star of the Disney movie Free Willie. He lived there for two years until 1998 when he was shipped back to Iceland where he was later released into the ocean.

​We did not see any whales in the aquarium and for that we were thankful.  The exhibits looked clean and the marine mammals appeared happy and well cared for. We enjoyed the outdoor exhibits, especially watching the otters swimming together, rolling around in the water and watching us right back.  

In the walk-through aviary we heard the puffins, with their expressive macaroni eyebrows, singing to each other, pottering about with their comical gait, and stretching their wings. Puffins are just born to stand out. We also saw a variety of oystercatchers, guillemots and murres flying freely inside the netted tent.

Entering the indoor galleries we found ourselves in a deep, dark underwater world filled with exhibitions of ethereal jellies, leggy stars, pink crabs, horses with curly tails and both local and brightly colored, exotic fish. We progressed in the semi darkness to an huge acrylic underwater tunnel titled Passages of the Deep where we enjoyed a 360 degree view of sharks, eels, rays, skates and a rather nosy grouper.

We smiled at the Pacific Banana Slug that had been elevated to the title of ambassador at the aquarium.

There was a lot of information and many exhibits on the conservation and I read as much as Henry would allow.

At the end we visited the aquarium shop and bought a souvenir T-Shirt for Kim that had a picture of a fish on the front with the word 'Salty.'

Nice. 

Definitely worth a visit.

We were mesmerized watching the weather roll in to Crescent City from our prime location, right on the beach. Henry and I were getting cabin fever. So while Kim continued tweaking his graphs (not a euphemism!) for his stock market trading, Henry and I set off in the rain to check out Ocean World in town.

​Henry and I love aquariums and we are always excited to discover new ones. However we are now aquarium snobs having visited the crème de la crème of aquariums in California; the world famous Monterey Bay Aquarium and the highly esteemed Aquarium of the Pacific. 

Ocean World was small and a bit, as Henry would say, "budget," but had some memorable features. Henry and I are always determined to have a good time and we entered with buoyant expectation. Billed as "...more than just an aquarium; it is entertainment for the whole family," we were hopeful it was going to be a fun experience. We certainly had fun outside posing on a surfboard set against a huge mural of a giant wave!

After mooching around the store for 15 minutes waiting for our timed entrance, we were led with our group through a nondescript door to a patio area with a simulated rock tide pool where we could "pet" the starfish and observe the flowery anemones whilst being silently observed by some fibre glass statues of pirates. There was also a life size model of a smallish orca. The most interesting and authentic artifact was the whale bone pelvis that had been found washed ashore in Crescent City.  As you can see from the pics, Henry was mightily impressed. 

We were then shepherded down some concrete steps into a basement that allowed us to view two large tanks. To our right was a tank of seals and sea lions and to our left, a tank of rays, leopard sharks, sturgeon and striped bass. The tanks were presented through a series of large windows that created a dramatic cinematic effect. The tanks were clearly very old, not very well maintained and quite small for the number of marine mammals and large fish living there. The sharks, rays and fish circled mindlessly. We padded about on the carpeted flooring between the two tanks, watching the sea creatures watching us. In the middle was a smaller tank titled "Sandy Bottom" containing local rockfish, Dungeness crab, spiny dogfish and silver and rainbow surfperch. In the hushed environment, time seemed to stand still. It was a little unnerving. Thankfully, a small child in our group shrieked and that seemed to waken us from our trance.

We then made our way up and out of the basement, plodding up some more concrete steps and were informed we were going to have a  real treat; the opportunity to "pet" a shark. Woo hoo! I wiggled my eyebrows at Henry. Henry rolled his eyes back at me. He  was suitably impressed and tried very hard to conceal his excitement. He succeeded.

We entered a room with a shallow pool and a single shark circling. I immediately thought, "We're going to need a bigger tank." The shark was a large and rather docile leopard shark and we all obediently stuck our hands into the water after being reassured with the good news that "no one has lost a finger yet." 

Henry and I then had fun mucking around pretending to be eaten by a great white shark. There was a fibreglass model and we took turns pretending to be gobbled up by the shark. Our death cries began to disturb the children on the tour and so we stopped.

The tour continued with a visit to the outside portion of the seal and sea lion tank. We noticed it was still chucking it down with rain so we stood watching in a covered breezeway with our hoods up blowing warm air into our hands. Our tour guide, a slip of a girl, who was clearly not Sea World trained, fetched a bucket of fish and threw some to the lovely mammals.

The two seals and one sea lion were clearly rescues as they were a motley crew. Scarred skin, missing eyes, withered whiskers and bitten fore flippers were the marks of these rescued mammals. It was really kinda heartbreaking. Henry and I exchanged sad faces. No words necessary.

We watched the "grand finale" as these brave little animals slid down a slide, jumped at a ball hung over the pool and waved at us in exchange for a few fish. 

We exited.

We love animal encounters, and we did have some giggles, but this visit felt just a little bit sad on a wet Friday afternoon.

A trip to San Francisco is never complete without the obligatory trip to Pier 39 on the Embarcadero. 

And a trip to Pier 39 is never complete without feeding your gob full of hot buttered garlic crab served on a vast piping hot platter at the legendary Crab House. The food is one of THE BEST things about San Francisco and the Crab House has been a favorite of ours for many years.

After a slap up lunch we mooched around the pier then strolled past Fisherman's Wharf down to Ghirardelli Square for an ice cream sundae dessert, then, feeling completely stuffed, we watched the turnaround for the cable cars on Beach Street after which we walked up the hill, puffing and panting, to walk down the twisty-turny Lombard Street. Fabulous!

On the way back to the trailer, we stopped for more photos of the Golden Gate Bridge from Fort Baker.

The pics do all the talking!

We ventured down to Cannery Row, of John Steinbeck fame, in Monterey to seek out the world famous Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Henry and I love aquariums and as a keen fisherman, Kim is always happy to learn more about fish varieties and the ever changing environment they need to survive and flourish.

Monterey Bay Aquarium is the very best aquarium we have ever visited.

Perched on the picturesque shores of California's Monterey Bay, it is a global leader in ocean conservation. It even featured in the movie "Finding Dory" where it was depicted as the Monterey Marine Life Institute. 

Since opening in 1984, it has established itself as a well respected institution, a beacon of marine education and research that captivates visitors and fosters a deep sense of connection with marine plants and animals in a modern, spacious, spectacularly beautiful facility that feels like a world class art exhibition.

In particular, the ethereal boneless beauty of the varieties of jelly fish; the Moon jellies with silvery pulsating bodies, the rich orange Pacific Sea Nettle jellies with impossibly long ribbons and locks floating elegantly behind and underneath them, casting secret spells, the illumined teeny tiny Bell jellies like little Edison light bulbs. The jellies become startling and utterly mesmerizing against the Monterey Blue background canvases in rounded tanks that make you feel as though you are peering through the windows of a submarine while it is trolling the depths of the ocean. During the Covid lockdown, Kim and I would pull up the live feed from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Jelly Web Cam on the telly as we found it to be soul soothing. You can check it out here.

Of course we found Nemo and Dory. We loved the bobbing penguins, the antics of the puffins and the adorable sea otters that we could see inside the Aquarium and also right outside in the Bay. The fairy tale kelp forest exhibit, colorful coral reefs and the variety of fish from enormous sharks and rays to the almost invisible plankton were all captivating in the way they emphatically declared the vibrancy of marine life. My favorite of the day was the most magnificent giant octopus who seemed to be feeling his way towards our hearts. Wow!

The Monterey Bay Aquarium once again inspired me to be a champion of the ocean and to renew our family efforts to reduce plastic and pollution to protect the wonders of the worlds oceans.

From a distance we saw the Queen Mary, another of our favorites. We have so many happy memories on board, particularly with my dear cousin Pippa and her family when they came out to visit, a good few years back now. She swears she met a ghost on board after getting lost on an upper deck. The ship has definitely got spooky vibes!

Happily, we found somewhere else for lunch in the nearby Marina.

Later we went on to Cabrillo Beach where we lazed around for the afternoon. It is one of my favorite beaches in the LA area as it is a hag stone beach. Hag stones are sedimentary stones found on beaches, rivers or lakes, that have naturally formed holes in them. They are believed to have magical, protective properties that ward off negative energies and are sometimes called Witches Stones or Fairy Stones. I had a relaxing afternoon mooching amongst the rocks happily finding the hag stones. 

Later we went to enjoy the sunset, fly our kites and enjoy the Korean Friendship Bell at Angel's Gate Park, up on the hill, overlooking the Pacific. Another easy breezy evening.