Aquarium of the Pacific

I'm a little late with this, but Chelsey and I went to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach a couple of weeks ago. I love aquariums in general, so it was really a guaranteed success for me, but it was pretty impressive. I haven't been to any of the really big aquariums (Monterrey, Baltimore, Atlanta) in a long time, if ever, but this seemed like a pretty good one to me. True to its name, the aquarium focuses on the Pacific Ocean, and the two main indoor exhibits are the Northern Pacific gallery and the Tropical Pacific gallery. The tropical area was more colourful, obviously, but both were pretty interesting. The northern part did have the puffins and the sea otters, which are always interesting to watch.

The most heavily-advertised part of the Aquarium is the shark experience, which is outdoors (you can see the Long Beach Harbor from out there). True to the advertisements, we petted several sharks and rays - with two fingers only, and keeping our fingers away from their mouths, as instructed. We liked comparing how different species felt to the touch. Some were quite slimy, while others were rough, like sandpaper. A staffer explained we could touch the sharks and rays because they have thick skins, but not other types of fish because their scales will flake off easily, which could lead to illness. Possibly my favourite fish of the whole place was the sawfish in the big shark tank (you couldn't put your hand in that one): it really looks like a big shark with a saw stuck on its face. Strange.

There's a seal and sea lion exhibit outside next to the sharks. We made sure to catch their show, as well as several other feedings in the other tanks. It was kind of educational - the aquarium tries hard to teach about the ocean and conservation - and quite a bit of fun.

-Jason