The Long Beach Aquarium

Saturday June 13th
We slept in Saturday morning until 8:30..this is unheard of for Jeff. Once we were up, Jeff did his one Saturday chore that he does without fail..the bills. I cleaned the house and then spent about 1 hour in the garden. At about 11:30 we picked up Debbie and Dan and with our coupons in hand we headed out to the Long Beach Aquarium. This is one of those places that is so close to home but we never scheduled a time to go and see it. We parked the car and then stood in a line that went nowhere. Eventualy we were inside the Aquarium and spent 2 hours looking into every tank of fish, and reading all the displays there. It was very well done, informative and one of their goals was to educate the public of their impact on nature. We looked at the stingrays and sharks from above and then walked down a little hill and saw the same fish from below. I like the look of stingrays, there is something quite gentle and magnificently gracious about them (I know my mother would disagree, several years ago she had the misfortune of stepping on a stingray and getting the barb stuck in her foot-not a good thing)


I had my camera with me and I was playing with it, therefore, many pictures were taken. Jeff did say something to me and indicated that I didn’t need to capture every fish digitally. I loved the jelly fish, the little clear ones that lite themselves up. The seahorses with their tales wrapped around a plant to anchor themselves while they napped-you could see they eyes opening and closing. The ocean shelves covered with corals and colorful sea life (I can’t spell what they were) those things with little tentacles waving in the currents. Shells, crabs, lobsters and beautiful fish, everywhere you looked there was something to amaze you. The little blue fish that we all thought was dead but apparently liked to lie on it’s side on the coral bed and…rest.

We saw the sea lions and seals being fed and learnt the difference between the two. The Aquarium was not a large facility but so well worth going to. I really enjoyed every moment that we spent there and having a glimpse of what is under the sea.

My bucket list has many things on it and I have found that having the list actually makes us see and do more things that are close by, but never experienced.