he Monterey Bay Aquarium is in Monterey, near the bay. Oddly enough. It's justifiably famous in Northern California, and I'd never been there before. Malaya had been, years and years ago, and dad had been a couple of times, including somewhat recently for a charity wine tasting event. I wanted to see the aquarium, and I'd talked about visiting it someday with Malaya, but since Monterey is about a two hour drive from where we live, it wasn't something we were going to drive down to on a lark.

Luckily for our travel and photography plans, my dad was going to be up from San Diego and in the Monterey area for a day, and Malaya and I decided to drive down and spend one day with him as a sort of combination my birthday/father's day event. We met him at his hotel, drove over down to the beach, had lunch, and were off to the aquarium. Which was pretty damn cool, though not so large that we couldn't see it all/begin to get sick of it in 2 hours.

It was a great opportunity for photo-taking though, and we had enough time after the aquarium to drive down the coast and take some pictures of the gorgeous sea cliff views. You can see those on the Big Sur page.

• Most of the photos on this page are thumbnails for a larger, crisper, and clearer image. Click them to see the big one open in a new browser window.

Not the most scenic shot, but this was the first one I took that day and one of the first I ever took with my new b-day camera. It's the restaurant that we ate lunch in as well. A fish market with about a dozen tables for lunch; more of a locals place than a tourist place, which is the main reason we (dad) picked it. It was pretty okay; nothing amazing, but not bad. I got the Cajun catfish sandwich which was okay, dad got fish and chips, which he said were mediocre, and Malaya got shrimp and chips, which were okay. Bland, she said. But it cost a lot less than one of the touristy restaurants on the water would have, and we were in and out in half an hour.

Click the image to see it larger, though I'm not sure why you'd want to. I only included it here since it was about the first photo I ever took with the new camera, and I was impressed by how crisp the detailed the image was.

I found these odd that in an aquarium devoted to preservation of ocean life and habitat, but I guess they figured what the hell, the whales and porpoises were dead, so why not stuff them and hang them up overhead. They were impressive, dangling from the rafters, and they're one of the first things you see once you enter the aquarium.

Click any of these three for a larger view of each.

More stuffed fish. I'm not sure what kind these once were, but they had dozens of them hanging on strings over the gift shop.  Rather pretty, I thought, though they lacked the majestic beauty of the larger specimens.

Click it for a larger view.

One of the cooler rooms in the aquarium was also one of the hardest to photograph. You see me here, posing by the logo, and overhead what looks like a fish poster. It's not a picture; it's a huge, thin fish tank that extends upwards most of the way over a domed roof. The only fish in it are these tiny silver sardines, and they swim round and round endlessly, in perfect formation (aside from a few lazy stragglers at the bottom. It's a dark room, and with the dim blue light coming from behind the fish it's rather hypnotic to gaze upwards at. Some people get motion sickness and can't take it, but we 3 all enjoyed it.

To see a larger view of the fish, click here.

Here's a smaller tank found inside the aquarium, with hundreds more sardines, going round and round and round. It's better for viewing, though you still get dizzy trying to follow an individual fish with such a tumult of motion. That's Malaya to the left there, wishing she had a can opener.

Click this one for a larger view.

And now we get to the big tanks. There are several of this size in the aquarium, all of which have multiple viewing angles. That's not actually the ocean there, it's an entirely self-contained tank with a thriving ecosystem inside of it. Apparently the technology was quite difficult to master, since they had to invent several machines that would move up and down to simulate waves, or else the kelp forests wouldn't grow right.

Click it to see the full sized image, and just how far up the glass goes.

These tanks were glorious to look through, but the water was so deep that not very much sunlight penetrated, and the camera had problems focusing in on what I wanted it to focus on.  A flash is of course useless for this sort of thing.

The fellow on the bottom wasn't at all attractive, but his weird blue eye drew my camera. I don't know if he was blind or had a cataract or what, but it did make him stand out from the pack.

Click any of these images to see them full size.

There was another super sized tank, which they said was the largest glass wall in the world. It had to be 30 feet high and 40 or 50 feet wide, and yes, if I'd heard a crack I would have run very quickly. Unfortunately for this video journal, that was also about the darkest room in the aquarium, and my camera had no luck focusing and maintaining adequate light on moving silvery targets through a foot of glass and ten feet of water.

You can also click the following links to see a couple more large shots into these tanks.

• Schools of fish.
• Seal close up.  The seals were great to watch, but they moved so quickly it was hard to get a good photo of them under water, and on the surface the glass was all covered in water splash drops, which ruined the view.

Elsewhere in the aquarium they have dozens of smaller tanks with smaller, more exotic inhabitants. Quite a few are just sea plants, and they were amazingly gorgeous. The sea stars in this petting pool were not that awe inspiring, but at least you got to put your filthy hands on them. That's Malaya's non-filthy hand in the shot above, I'll have you know.

This was one of the prettiest tanks there, with gorgeous pink and purple anemone and other rock growing things. I strongly recommend that you click it for the larger view, as well as clicking the following two links, which are both close up views of that gorgeous tall one with the waving arms.

• Click me.
• Click me too.

The aquarium was smart enough to have thrown together a Finding Nemo themed tank, with several examples of most of the fish you see in the movie. I took several shots of it, and not entirely because it was so flat and well lighted that it was easy to take good pictures of.  

And of course there was a little clown fish in there. A clown fish that caused every kid to say, "Nemo!  Daddy look, it's Nemo!" I heard about half a dozen kids say this while I was there, and oddly enough, not one of them said, "It's Marlin, Nemo's dad!"

Little kids obviously identify more with the little kid fish. Then again, dad wasn't the one in the dentist's aquarium.

A couple random shots of eels. I should have taken some more photos of them, since they were gorgeous, stationary, and none of the three pictures I did take came out crystal clear.

I liked this tank for the strange, mushroom-like white things with all the tiny little afro-broccoli sprouts coming off of them. 

Click to see it bigger, or click this to see another wider view of this tank.

This not especially impressive shot (click to see it twice as large and much more impressive) interested me enough to zoom in on the tall green one to the right. Which you see below.

This one actually looks better in the photo than in real life. I'm zoomed in quite a bit here, and it's still perfectly in focus. Click to see the large version of it and marvel at the detail and the dark little veins along the body of the thing. I had the big version of this one as my desktop, for a while. It's that clear.

Suddenly, in the middle of the aquarium, there's a door opening to the outside, and a little courtyard with a bunch of various shore birds in a small aviary. I could really give a shit about birds myself, but they were just sitting there, 10 or 15 feet away, and I had a new camera, so what the hell.

Click the two shots above to see their beautiful plumage, or click these three bullet links to see other birds in various bird-like poses.

• Bird.
• Another bird.
• Bird #3.

Back inside, we entered the realm of the jellyfish. They had half a dozen tanks of them, all with flat black or blue backgrounds, and they were among the most impressive things in the entire place.

This tank was very simple, but still one of the most impressive in the aquarium. Just a bunch of peach-colored jellyfish, floating around upside down, sideways, etc. I took a bunch of close ups and most of them didn't work out very well. But some did.

You almost want to poke at it to see if it would just crumple up into a ball about the size of a pea.  If you try it, wear a glove.

• Another close view of two floating side by side.

They've got lots of different jellyfish, some with longer trailing tendrils than others.

Click this shot to see it full-sized. The jelly fish, when presented against a plain black background, were just amazing. Detailed, transparent, floating, vibrating, etc. Pity about their kill a man tentacles.

• Here's another larger view of a single one of this type.

This riot of jelly fish was both beautiful, and confusing. They were in a dome-shaped tank, and they all just laid on the black rocks on the bottom, more or less motionless. Not floating, just sort of there, as though they were ground-dwelling. Click the shot to see it full sized and uncropped, it's pretty visually overpowering.

Some of the exhibits at the Monterey Bay Aquarium change regularly, so if/when I return I'll be sure to take more photos; ideally ones of slightly different forms of aquatic life.

All site content copyright "Flux" (Eric Bruce), 2002-2007.