Oregon Coast Aquarium

I’ve been to a few aquariums, but one of the best ones I went to was this last summer – the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Oregon.  It was kind of funny how we ended up going there.  The day before, we headed out to the dunes and headed right back because  it was too windy.  Wind and sand isn’t a good combination, it really stings when it slaps your face!  Since our original plans weren’t working out too good, my mom had gone to the ranger station and while she was talking to the rangers, my brother and I grabbed handfuls of brochures on “what to do.”  It paid off because we whipped out the one about the aquarium and thought, “what the heck?”  It was better than sitting around staring at the walls or getting dragged to some funky shop my mom wanted to check out.
Right away we thought it wasn’t going to be so bad, there was a lot of parking and it kind of reminded us of the aquarium in San Francisco.  Well, it reminded Mom of that one, that’s what she said when we pulled into the lot.  We figured we would be in and back out within the hour.
The first section we went through were where all the aquariums were.  It was where the smaller fish like sea horses, tropical looking fish with bright colors, clown fish, regal blue tang fish (like Dory from Finding Nemo) and some of the small jellyfish were in different built in and freestanding aquariums.  Almost everything we saw was a native to the Oregon coast.  It was surprising to learn that there are sea horses off the Oregon coast!  I thought they would have been someplace down by the Equator. We did know about the jellyfish, though.  We had been to the ocean a few years ago and there were a whole bunch of dead, washed up jellyfish along the beach.  We had to be careful walking around them because if you step on them you can get stung even though they are dead.  That section wound around and it took us almost a half-an hour before we reached some of the hands-on exhibits.
The very first one was a wide case that stood right about the same height as a kindergarten table.  I thought the people standing around were crazy because there wasn’t anything in there.  I tried looking for what could have been inside, even looking to see if whatever it was jumped out!  But then my brother, Z-Dude, was moving his hands through the water and something moved!  It surprised both of us.  Inside there were really small, sand-colored manna rays also known as stingrays. We got to touch them.  They were soft, almost like silk except if you moved your hand from tail to head, they were scaly and rough.  The person there from the aquarium said that’s because there are tiny little razor-like teeth underneath.
Moving down the hall we came upon a “visiting” exhibit.  Inside were these crazy looking crabs.  They are the largest crabs in the world and come from Japan, called Japanese Giant Spider Crabs.  What made them so weird looking was that their legs were super long, like Daddy-Long-Legs long.
Inside all of these tanks was the most fascinating art work on display. The museum hired some artists to create the different “art” that went into the tanks.  There were huge glass-blown chains that looked like actual chains that would have moored a boat or, like the one in the sea horse tank, a necklace of Lifesavers.  Some looked like seaweed, some like lily pads, some were like flames in different colors: bright orange, green, purple and pink. There was one that looked like an old fashioned milk bottle, another that looked like someone lost their boot.  It was like going to an art museum and the aquarium at the very same time and very, very cool. 
We got to play in the tide pools, watching as the water bubbled over the rocks and the foam stuck on the backs the creatures hidden along the “shoreline.”  There were sea anemones, sea urchins, sea cucumbers and colorful starfish.  Did you know that starfish have teeth right at their belly?  Ah, but we haven’t even been halfway through the aquarium yet!
Outside in a cave down in the dark there was a tank hidden away in the corner.  We couldn’t see very well inside and looked around to try to figure out what was supposed to be in there.  Right about the time Z-dude read the sign saying “Giant Octopus” I saw a huge eye blinking at me.  It was the size of my cat’s head!  Now that was kind of spooky.
Then we moved on to the puffins, they are birds that look a bit like an erect crested penguin and kind of like the extinct Dodo birds.  They’re a rock hopper bird meaning they spend most of their time in the rocks nearby the ocean and only a small amount actually flying.  My mom liked watching those the most.  But me?  I was interested in moving on to the sea lions and then… a very cool mammal.
The sea lions I’ve seen before.  My aunt lives in San Francisco and so we sometimes go to the wharf where lots and lots of sea lions bask in the sun on the docks.  They’re lazy and stinky but from far away, they’re fun to watch.  These were pretty funny even though they were all trying to sleep up on one of the rocks in the display.  Like I said, they’re lazy.
Now, the sea otters are exactly opposite the sea lions which is why they were one of my more favorite exhibits.  I could have easily spent the day sitting there watching them swim around their “pond.”  They would dive to the bottom to grab up shells the people working at the aquarium would toss in there for them to play with.  And then they would roll onto their backs and swim around.
So if you are ever on the Oregon coast, definitely go to the Oregon Coast Aquarium, you will thank me!  Make sure you bring a camera, too.