Sea World with Grandma and Grandpa T

 Grandma  and Grandpa Thompson were so awesome when we visited us and surprised us by taking us to Sea World.  Here we are shading our eyes while we get a picture near the light house.

Grandpa loves flamingos.

This was an exhibit where the rays can swim above you.  Pretty amazing.

Conner is trying to show us the sea anemone in this tank.

Here are some more interesting stars and anemone. 

Can you spot the sea horses?

I would not like to step on one of these sea urchins.

These are called shrimp fish.  Can you spot them?  They really blend in with the seaweed.

Check out this shrimp.

The thing that looks like seaweed floating around is actually called a sea dragon.  Quite fascinating.

How did they get into the tank?

The ducklings were adorable. :)

Check out the sea turtles.

What is everyone looking at?

Sting rays.  They were pretty neat to touch.

This was a tank where you could pet dolphins, if they got close enough to you.  At this time the trainers were feeding them and training them.  

 

This is the underwater view of the same dolphins.

This was a tank that you go through on a treadmill, that you stand on and look in amazement at the cool sharks and fish all around you. 

These are pictures of a sealion and otter show, at the end they showed a huge walrus. 

These next few pictures were taken in the "Artic" exhibit.  It was very cold, they even had a wall of ice you could feel.  Bbbbrrrrrrr! The picture above and below are of a Beluga whale. 

Check out the polar bear.

See the walrus. Here is his top, and below is this rear. He is very big.  According to the  favorite PBS show "Wild Kratts" we learned that the walrus likes to bob around like this in rough seas.  They have a kind of sack that allows them to float like this for hours and hours.  Quite amazing.

Here is the underwater version of the beluga whale.  

At the end we went to the killer whale show.  Quite nice, although not as exciting as the dolphin show.  It seems that the trainers are no longer allowed to swim with the killer whales.  We suspect that it is because of the string of whale attacks on trainers recently.  I do admit, I would definitely not like to experience something that dreadful. 

 

We didn't get pictures of the dolphin show, which were amazing, because we were in the splash zone and I do not have and I did not want to get my iPhone wet.  I need to get one of those otterskins, or boxes, what ever they are called.  We also did not get pictures of the cat, dog, pig, bird, and rat show.  It was amazing what they could get them to do. Maybe next time.  ;)