Sunday, October 19, 2008

The Pacific Aquarium in Long Beach

We spent a wonderful day today in the harbor area of Long Beach. This is a truly beautiful location with a excellent harbor walk, shops of all kinds, and the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific facility. We parked right across the street in the parking building ($7) which is well positioned for exploring the area.
Orinda was very impressed with the life-size whale exhibit that greeted us when we arrived. This large facility focuses on the sealife in the California area and includes kelp displays, sea lions, sea otters, sharks and much more.

There were several aquariums featuring jelly fish -- these were fascinating. These particular jelly fish are called Moon Jelly fish and were very graceful in swimming.
Jellies have to be housed in a special round tank to make sure they do not get wedged into a corner.

Some of our favorites were the very colorful anemones which were featured in several displays. A common native of southern California, these grew in many different types and sizes.
This very large crab looked fierce and comes from the very cold water of the northern Pacific. I admit that I thought of inviting the crab to dinner - after a short encounter with boiling water, crab legs would be enjoyed!

After touring the aquarium, we walked around the bay area which is very extensive. There is a large commercial area near the marina that included this beautiful tall ship which is used to provide summer camps at sea for youth.

Rick kept his eye out for larger cruising sailboats. There were several docked at this area.

This is a very active area and features the Long Beach Container Terminal and can handle many large ships. Two interesting vessels that we saw were the Queen Mary and the Carnival Pride cruise ship. Even though we were on the other side of the bay, these large ships were very impressive.

After a very enjoyable day in the Long Beach Bay area, we stopped at the driving range so Rick could try out his new driver. He bought a driver a couple days ago, but after trying it out, was not happy with it. Fortunately, the store where he bought it offers a "buy it, try it, and exchange it" if you are not happy with it, so Rick took them up on it and swapped for a Taylor made Burner driver. After hitting a number of balls on the range with this, he seemed very happy with his purchase!

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