millions of jellyfish!

Monterey Bay Aquarium and Cannery Row

sardines, sprung from the can
The Monterey Bay Aquarium is built in what used to be a major sardine canning district. Today the factories are full of tourist shops, and the sardines have larger accomodations, like this tank that circles the top of a round room in one of the exhibits.

The bay is a particularly good place for oceanography, because the seafloor drops dramatically very close to shore, thus enabling deep sea research with a standard 9 to 5 commute. Looking out the seaward windows of the aquarium, these rocks make a good place for ocean wildlife to sun themselves.
sealife in its natural habitat

encrustation of barnacles
Barnacles! I had no idea they had these little feathery fan bits that wave in the water and collect nutrients. They look like giant eyelashes.

Demo: a dolphin is more hydrodynamic that a schoolbus
the swimming schoolbus

a rare great white shark in captivity? we may never know...
This may be the only great white shark in captivity (at the time of my visit.) It had only been there about two weeks, and I was not aware of its existence until after I had left the aquarium. If there were signs around the deep-sea tank talking about it, there were also people standing in front of them.

My favorite part of the aquarium, though, was all the jellyfish. They had two separate exhibits, one of sea-drifters (which also included some schooling fish, like the sardines) and one called "Jellies: living art," which had both jellyfish and jelly-inspired artwork. Either of which had more different species of jellyfish than I had seen in any one aquarium before.

these guys are about a foot long rare 'glass jellies' (I think)

these are quite large, some as big as 8 or 9 inches across the cap
ooh, glowing blue

now you see me...
Invisijellies! On the left, with the tank lights picking out its delicate edges, and on the right, as you would see it in the open ocean. Or not see it, as the case may be.
...now you don't

rare, upsidedown jellyfish, who mainly hang out on the sea floor
tiny square jellyfish! My favorite, if horribly out of focus-- these jellies are square! They're barely bigger than in this picture, with four little groups of 3 tentacles each making "corners."

On Cannery Row, there are large numbers of tourist shops, and sidewalk cafes overlooking the bay. This gull apparently thought someone was going to buy him one of the specials from this seafood restaurant.
After a distressing moment of discovering the (painfully tacky) "Hairy Otter" spin-off merchandice, my find of the day was in a little underground magic shop where the door was guarded by coin-operated magician known as "The Great Zucchini." Amongst the cheap chinese toys and magic trick props, I found Seventy-Five Cent Death. He comes in two models, standing and action Death.

In this location Carmen Sandiego would probably steal: the great white shark