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Employee perk: being able to see the kelp forest with no people around (before we open!
The northern anchovy ‘yawns’ as it eats because it’s opening its mouth and eating everything
I think I’ll keep updating this thread to share the joy I see whenever I am onsite (which is going to be, often, coz I need this)
I learned that the jellies have circular tanks because.. they get stuck in corners
Sticking my phone through the holes of a fence. And finding a (I think) Brandt’s cormorant colony
Kind of unfair that a random photo out of the railings has birds and otters in it
I get to sea the open sea exhibit before we open! A sure way to know we haven’t opened is there are bubbles in the water
The Monterey bay aquarium stands on the grounds of a former sardine cannery. Due to overfishing, the sardine population collapsed. When I heard about this I thought of the Silicon Valley office parks 50 miles north, engaged in modern extractive exploitation without ever giving back.
The recovery of the bay, the work of the aquarium and the marine national park status has completely changed the environment
Attending a staff-only internal guitar concert in the open sea exhibit this morning
You can watch some live cams here (of the animals, not the concert)
Move over, JK ‘TERFY’ Rowling.
Here’s ’Hairy Otter’, written by (probably) JK Owl
My friends are asking if I’m involved in any of the fun social media and I’m like nope but I love that team and I’m trying to meet all of them
(Monterey Bay is the GOAT: Greatest Ocean of all Time)
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DCZ-RrjIwQy/?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
The otter people didn’t let me take my phone to the behind the scenes otter feeding, but promised to send me photos after so
At work they got us to head out to connect with the ocean. Honestly can’t believe I get to be here
Also not lost on me that this very beach was yet another Chinese settlement that was destroyed by ‘fire’ in 1906
Someone just told me ‘California sheephead transition from female to male, AND conjure a sphere of mucus to protect them when they sleep’
Maybe it shows I spend a lot of time looking at jellyfish but I got in this morning and was like NEW JELLY
Some photos of the outside
Many of my days in Monterey kick off here. It’s the coffee spot near work I tend to have breakfast meetings at, and also the mid point stop on my bike ride there.
View from an office window (and I work in one of the ‘boring’ office buildings, not at the main aquarium). They all have pretty good views I think
The kelp forest exhibit says something like ‘you always know it’s a rockfish when it’s just laying there not moving’
Same
My wife is in town (very rare!) so we took a nice evening stroll from the aquarium to the Sandbar
Bloody-belly comb jelly. Can’t believe I get to see this at work
https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals/animals-a-to-z/bloodybelly-comb-jelly
Black necked stilts at our onsite aviary (which rehabilitates and releases injured birds, and keeps those who can’t be released)
@skinnylatte we visited last weekend! The most unexpectedly amazing thing for me was seeing the puffins and murres swimming underwater, so agile and graceful
@julie love the baby puffins
@skinnylatte oh no I did NOT see baby puffins
@skinnylatte Did you get to smell the penguins while you were at work?
@skinnylatte Awww, I wanna see penguins at work too.
There should be a law against there being no penguins at work.
@skinnylatte This is such a joyful and beautiful thread. 
(And I need to go to the aquarium in Vienna again.)
@skinnylatte byo squids.
@skinnylatte this one has a handle, you can take animals from the main tanks on loan for the day.
@skinnylatte Holy crap. That's gorgeous.
Back in the day, I chose to remain in Los Angeles rather than accept a job offer in Monterey, because the girl I was dating was not in a position to leave.
Fast forward a few decades. We've been married for 32 years, she is the best wife I can conceive of, we live in a suburb of beautiful Portland, I have no regrets...
... but hell yes, I still think of what might have been.
@skinnylatte Any view that includes a large body of water is a good view, as far as I'm concerned.
@skinnylatte Is that Hopkins?
@CWilbur Hopkins is to the left... a bit? out of frame. That's the American Cannery building that will soon be hotel
@skinnylatte Wow how things change! Anyway, you're not far from Butterfly Beach, which is named for, not Monarchs, but the "butterfly" shells that washed up on the beach (Blue Chiton segments) that look like little blue butterflies.
@skinnylatte Here’s a shot my great great uncle Ray took of Butterfly Beach (left) and Point Cabrillo (right) back in the late 19-aughts. He went on to become President of Stanford and was pretty instrumental in the development of the marine research station.
@CWilbur oh wow!!
@CWilbur @skinnylatte do we want to ask the question where your relative was on 16-17 May 1906?
@douglasvb @skinnylatte What? You mean April 18th? I'm honestly not sure. I'll have to look it up in his bio. Pretty likely he was in California... somewhere. Mostly likely between Stanford and SF, although it was possible he was in southern Arizona collecting specimens. Stay tuned!
I had other relatives living in Modesto, and the quake there did knock a few people out of bed. Another great great uncle - Walter was an enterprising young man at the time (I had the chance to interview him in 1974) He took a team and a "truck" (an open wagon) up to the city to help with the reconstruction.
@CWilbur @skinnylatte the May 16-17 timeframe was when the Chinese fishing village that had been where Hopkins is today burned down which conveniently cleared the way for Hopkins to be built.
https://seaside.stanford.edu/point-alones-chinese-fishing-village-0
@douglasvb @skinnylatte Oh. I was unaware of that. Now I definitely have to look it up.
@CWilbur @skinnylatte I didn't realize the Marine station is also built on the Chinese cemetery. That place has to be haunted
@douglasvb @skinnylatte Don’t know anything about no ghosts. I do remember the Feast of Lanterns; dressed up little boats doing their annual tour of the rocky coast on an early summer evening. I was typically there at Lovers Point in the summers as a lad in the 60’s. Always great fun exploring the coast in the early mornings, from Lovers Point to Cannery Row.
I did get my facts wrong from earlier. Uncle Ray went to Arizona much earlier. By the time May of 1906 came around, he was already dean of physiology at Stanford, and was too busy helping to repair the earthquake damage to hop on down to Monterey to start a fire. So the mystery remains unsolved. 
@douglasvb @skinnylatte Love your alt text on Shirley Temple.
@skinnylatte I can't really move, definitely don't want to commute, and I like my job just fine. And yet. I did just look up the job listings page (https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/about-us/job-opportunities if you're similarly intrigued)
@skinnylatte this is giving elementary school teacher aesthetic in the best possible way
@skinnylatte Okay, a bit jelly.
@skinnylatte Mood, to be honest.
@skinnylatte I see they're observing their social distance today
@skinnylatte Fully thought this was a food post until I noticed the tags. I kinda want an egg yolk jelly [food item] now though…..
@skinnylatte semi sentient egg drop soup 
@skinnylatte
A photographer's natural affinity for anything near teal-orange 
@skinnylatte that looks amazing, and also like it is dangerous to the touch…
@skinnylatte @blogdiva Jellyfish are so cool.
@skinnylatte I did not know these existed 
@skinnylatte cormorants convene on Cannery component.
@skinnylatte I really need glasses, take 6,385: I read that as “Black Necked Shits”. 
@amin lemme know! We can go whale watching ;)
Oooh, haven't done that since South Africa! And I was a little 'un.
@amin It's absolutely wonderful. The best aquarium, hands down, I've ever seen. We used to live in Monterey County and didn't go there enough.
A ringing endorsement!
Hm, been a long time since I've been to an aquarium, actually. There's one I've been to in California but I don't remember which…
@skinnylatte ooh actually, could you be my person on the inside? I love visiting when there's a giant sunfish / mola mola on display but I know they have difficulty keeping them too long because of how fast they grow
@ramiro ooh I will ask someone
@skinnylatte the photo really does not convey how ridiculously big they are.