13 Thursday
This morning we bought two senior citizen tickets for the Monterey Aquarium from the motel check out office and set off into downtown Monterey to explore. The aquarium opened at 9:30 and we had time to park in a parking building, walk a few hundred metres and be there just in time to be one of the first to enter. The aquarium was stunning.  On a site at the edge of Monterey Bay and at the end of Cannery Row (John Steinbeck fame) and close to downtown Monterey, the aquarium building was designed by a San Francisco architect who converted the old Hovden Cannery building in 1977. The aquarium opened in 1986. We spent well over three hours there and were still coming across new things we hadn't seen when we were making our way out.

I was most impressed with some of the learning areas where staff were at hand to explain about the marine animals you were looking at. For children there were many 'touch and feel' areas where they were encouraged to learn by doing as well as looking.

We saw the feeding of the yellow fin tuna and other large outer bay species in the huge main tank. These fish are fed only 4 times a week, there must have been in excess of 20-30 of them in the tank along with dozens of other fish from the outer bay. This tank is apparently the largest marine animal tank in the USA. The feeding was impressive, live squid and another small fish unknown to us were being thrown onto the surface and the tuna went into their feeding frenzy. Viewed from beneath through the tank walls the tuna would accelerate to incredible speeds to home in on their prey, darting and weaving through the small fish school to pick out with unerring accuracy 2 or 3 fish in one sorty. They continued feeding for about 5 minutes, the smaller species of fish were not interested in the food except for the large turtle and sunfish that picked up the scraps.

After three hours of walking around the aquarium we decided it was time to move on and we strolled along Cannery Row looking at the tourist industry's take over of Steinbeck's sardine cannery factory in the street. It was impossible to get any idea of the Steinbeck atmosphere in the grossly commercialised tourist area, there now being no connection between what Steinbeck wrote about and what we saw in the streets. At Fishermans wharf, (another area that has suffered with modern tourism) we walked up and down between the small shops selling Clam chowder in bread bowels ($6), tourist trinkets engraved with Steinbecks name or 'Cannery Row' or 'Monterey Canning Factory'.  Many places offered crab or lobster meals with the condemned animal in a tank, claws bound to avoid multilating their neighbour. Much as I like crab or lobster meals, I found it a bit much and we moved on feeling considerable sympathy for Novey's humanitarian stance with regard to animals.

The outside tidal pools of the Aquarium
The original wharf area which now plays host to tourists getting their "Fisherman's Wharf" experience	Whale watch tourist industry now replaces the cannery factories

A brief look at the Marine Museum information center and it was time to head off on highway 1 bound for highway 101 and Mountain View. We reached Russell's place at about 5:30 and after they come home from work at about 7, we all went out to the Thai Restaurent in Downtown Mountain View for dinner.