Visit the Aquarium

Today we decided to go for a leisurely stroll after lunch and visit the aquarium. It is quite small and only takes a couple of hours to visit all of the exhibits but very interesting regardless. Almost as soon as we entered the building there was an anemone tank with dozens of "Nemos" - they are such a cute little fish and popular with almost everyone.

The pictures are not the best - a point and shoot, extra thick glass and glare are difficult to work with.

This picture does not quite do justice to the giant grouper - it was enormous - maybe 3 feet long and weighing what I am not sure. Get a hook  into this guys mouth and no doubt he would win the battle.  It sure had a big mouth and looked as if it could eat everything else in the tank if given the chance.

This tank was an aqua culture effort to propagate giant clams for reintroduction. The giant clam is quite slow growing and is being harvested almost to extinction. It was amazing to see the variety of colours of the clams - blue, green and mixtures of both. Ed had the impression from nature films that these clams were a basic white only.  Never too old to learn.
There were many tanks with jelly's, nautilus, moray eels, sea horses - so funny looking, and many other strange and beautifully coloured sea life. The highlight of the visit was feeding time for the Hawaiian Monk Seals - they have two males - these guys are very smart and a pleasure to watch.

We have only ever seen these little guys in pet stores, in cages - here they are as common as sparrows - nice looking little birds and great to see them flying free.

On our way back for dinner we had a great laugh at these guys. The trick is to stay upright while in the bubble, roll yourself into the other folks and try to push them around. These guys were all excited while they waited to get in the bubble and had no clue how hard it was going to be - stay  upright and go forward - think of hamster wheel - not a chance. After only a few minutes of running like hell and going nowhere these guys were knackered and could only flop in the bottom of the bubble.
We howled - so funny.