We found Nemo

[fbhjr]

As my wife has been very busy lately, I asked her to put aside a day for me. She agreed to spend this Saturday with me so we could go somewhere together.
We spent all week trying to decide where to go. We like a lot of museums, places and things to do.
Finally, my wife suggested we go down to Mystic, CT and go to the aquarium there.

I like aquariums, but I hadn’t been to this one since 1981, even thought it’s less than 90 miles from home. So, I agreed it was a good plan and we set off.

The Mystic Aquarium has a bunch of beluga whales.


It’s fun to watch them swim about. They seem interested in seeing people watch them as well.


For whales, they’re small. But, they’re still pretty big.


They’re also fairly noisy. They make a whole lot of chirps and clicks in addition to the sonar I can’t hear.


After we looked at the whales, we went into the “pet the ray” exhibit. There were a fair number of people, and not many rays, so none actually swam close enough for us to touch.


We did wonder about the two nurse sharks in the tank with them.
“They’re in there for training,” the aquarium guy said.
“Training them for what?” I asked.
“Training them to sit in people’s lap,” he said.

OK. I know they offer a program to get in the water with the beluga. I’m actually pretty tempted by that. That might be worth the money for me.
But, I’m not sure I’d pay extra to have a shark sit in my lap.
But, who knows? Maybe it will be a big seller.

They were about to start a sea lion show. So, we went up the stairs to the auditorium. As you do, you go past the top of one of the big tanks on the main floor. It’s nice to see the top of the artificial reef too.


The sea lion show was pretty good.


They don’t do a whole lot of tricks like they used to at the Boston Aquarium.
But, they do let the sea lions get very close to the audience.


They only do that with the oldest and best trained one. Andy they throw them a lot of fish before and after.


But, it’s strange to see them gliding by where they could get folks shoes wet.


Next, we went out to the penguin exhibit.


Although it’s a fairly small museum, there are a lot of paths around it. So, it takes some walking to get out there.

They don’t seem to have a whole lot of penguins. Waiting below water, my wife couldn’t see any.


But, they were there.


In addition to the lower window, they have two bubbles that stick out into the tank.




I liked climbing into the bubble.


You could really get a good look at the birds that way.


My wife didn’t seem to want to climb so far in.


Next we went over to see the white sided dolphins.


They were busy playing soccer.


I’m not sure how a dolphin holds onto a soccer ball and swims underwater with it. But, they managed it pretty well.


Eventually the one who had it would drop it and the others would go for it. Dolphins or humans, the game of keep away seems to have pretty much the same rules.


The inside of the aquarium is fairly small, but well set up.


There was a point going through that every kid in the aquarium said the same thing:
“Look! It’s Nemo! I’ve found him!”


The aquarium is very friendly to kids. They have special windows and tanks at kid height for them.


They also have nooks and things that only kids fit in.


(OK, I was tempted to climb into the lobster pot myself. Doubly so when I found it had one of the bubbles into one of the bigger tanks. But, I didn’t. It’s for the kids. Right? Right?)

And, it’s set up well for adults too. There are lots of tanks with big curved windows so you can stand in among the fish.


And, doing so, you can see them really well.


The big lobster in the bottom right made my wife want sea food for dinner.


There were a good range of fish. Including several different flat fish.


I feel flat fish are under represented in aquariums.
Except rays.


They’re flat and everywhere. But, it’s not the same...
There were some that were not flat, but still strange.


The longer we were there, the more we said “sea food for dinner”.


My wife was very impressed by the Winter Flounder’s camouflage. They change color to match their background. So the tank has different backgrounds to show them changing.


They also had some strange upside down jellyfish. Don’t see that often.


They have lots of rays. Flat or not, they seem very popular.


One of the tanks on the bottom floor is looking into the area where they sea lions swim for their show.


They show off under water too.


One of the tanks had a diver in it feeding the fish. What he was feeding them seemed very strange to me.


Feeding fish carrots? Is that normal? I don’t think carrots wash down to the ocean often...
But, the fish seemed to like it more than the celery he tried later...

Outside, it was whale feeding time.


There are seven of the beluga there, and each had someone feeding them.


The whales seemed very happy about it and would do tricks to get fish.


They also seemed more than willing to spit water at their feeders if they fish didn’t come fast enough.


I like them.


They also made a fair bit of noise for their food.


I’m not sure what was going on here.


But, the whale seemed happy about it afterwards.


After the aquarium, we couldn’t help by notice there was a shopping village on the other side of the parking lot. So, it was shopping in Old Mystic Village.
They have big bears.


And, sadly, they had a gnome infestation.


They also had a bunch of ducks and sold duck feed.


My wife started feeding the ducks.


They ducks were very excited by this.


But, a bunch of ducks mounted a rear assault on her by flying around behind her to get more food.
My wife fooled them by handing the feed to a couple of kids who were watching and telling them to feed the ducks instead.

While we explained to their parents we didn’t want the duck food any more, and their kids should get the swarm of ducks, we went off to the sea food restaurant.
It was good. Mid afternoon it wasn’t crowded. But, I was getting tired.


So, as the sun was setting, we drove back home eating the fudge we bought at the store.


It was a good time. I’m glad we spent the time together. It was a great idea my wife had to go there.

Comments

[kismets-kiss.livejournal.com]

Great pix! Thank you for sharing your day, looks like a blast. I've never been to an aquarium, I need to look into that.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

Well, if you're out this way there are several of them.
The Boston one is very big.
Mystic isn't as large, but I like it better.

[danielgreenwolf.livejournal.com]

Of course he's in CT! We keep all the famous fish here. I think we've even got flipper in a Tuna can somewhere in this damned state! :-D

Mystic is a great place. Rachel and I had a mini-vacation there two years ago. We stayed for 3 days and visited the seaport and the village along with the aquarium. Cool stuff.

-Much love,
D.G.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

I did the whole Seaport thing a few years ago when my wife worked for the Ecotarium. They had a field trip there as a museum exchange. They let me tag along even though I hadn't worked there since 85...
But, they were redoing the aquarium when we were there, so couldn't see it.
Both are cool.
I think my wife is planning on going back to the village with her mother.
It's closer than Maine and has similar shops.

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

Hooray!!

[morgan-lafaye.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I always liked the Mystic aquiraum. The pic. of the beluga and feeder that you quetion whats going on. The feeder is scratching the whales tongue. They like that, its like scratch'n the back of a cat or dog at the base of their tail.

[64tbird.livejournal.com]

The keeper probably had her hand in the mouth of the beluga as part of training them to let the vet's do it for check ups and such.

[capt-amos.livejournal.com]

Great picture post! Looks like an excellent day.
I have the same feelings you do about the "kid-sized" exhibits...sometimes I just go on in! :-)

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

It was a very good day. I was very happy about it.

If the kids things hadn't been full of kids, I would have gone in. But, I wasn't going to push them out of the way for my own sake.