Fantasy Caravan Day 37 - Free Day with free access to Alaska Sealife Center

On Sunday, we had a free day, with free access with our Fantasy IDs to the Alaska Sealife Center. We took it easy in the morning, joining our church from Irving, TX, and headed into Seward to the Sealife Center in the afternoon.

The lady that we checked in with at the reception desk recommended that we start upstairs in the Sealife Center.

Alaska is a BIG state, and has a VERY LONG coastline...

Two oceans, three seas, and the Gulf of Alaska. It is a longer tidal shoreline than all the lower 48 states combined.

The second floor had access to outside exhibits that had seawater pools that were also then visible underwater on the first floor.

Wow!

A photo station -- friends who are on the tour with us took our pictures!

Lots of aquariums...

... with lots of interesting sealife!

Strange and unusual creatures...

... and beautiful creatures too!

All of the water in the tanks is brought in from Resurrection Bay, so, when the bay is churned up (by rainfall, as it was when we were there), the silt from the bay is in the tanks as well. But, since they use water directly from the bay, they don't need to "make" seawater.

The first outside area that we went into was the sea bird room -- we got to see puffin...

and other birds...

some of them were quite raucous!

Friendly discussion or argument?

another view of the puffin...

... and yet another view. Usually Fantasy tours would participate in the "Puffin Experience" at this facility, but for some reason, it was not available to us.

There were a series of "touch tanks" where you could touch the sea life in the tank -- I took advantage to pet a starfish (it was very soft on the top side, and very bristly under its legs)...

I also petted another one that was, I think, upside down, as it was very bristly to touch.

We looked outside at the outside tanks and we think that this one (a seal? sea lion?) is related to Carl as he/she/it was napping on the pool deck in the afternoon!

We went outside to a deck with a view over the Resurrection Bay...

We had heard on the cruise on Saturday about the destruction to this area by the 1964 earthquake.

The tsunami generated by the quake would have hit the Hawaiian islands in about 5-6 hours. https://nctr.pmel.noaa.gov/alaska19640328/#:~:text=At%2003%3A36%3A14.0%20UTC,U.S.%20West%20coast%20and%20Hawaii.

The impact was not just to human structures...

... salmon returned, and fishing resumed, but not to the same level.

It is normal to think that Alaska is very cold, but Seward is actually a temperate rainforest.

Looking across Resurrection Bay (it is still cloudy)

The coast of Resurrection Bay near Seward

Out toward the inlet to Resurrection Bay

Salmon in a tank inside the Sealife Center

Harbor seals

A video of one of the harbor seals:

A particularly ugly fish!

It was a Lingcod.

other sealife

Here the Stellar Sea Lion brushed across the window as he swam by - flattening his skin. The two young girls at the window give perspective on size.

The halibut stays mainly on the bottom...

... when the halibut swims, it looks like it is swimming sideways. with its sides up and down...

Another view of the halibut

An interesting fish...

This was the fish tank that was below where the birds were located up above:

The Jellyfish look other worldly...

So beautiful!

The movements of the jellyfish are beautiful:

We enjoyed the Alaska Sealife Center! (Carl said that I should indicate that we went scuba diving and saw all these fish, but I kinda figure y'all would know that isn't true!)