The Baltimore Aquarium -- Sea Turtles, Jellies and Sharks, O My

Oh, the Baltimore Aquarium!!!!  What a terrific place. And thanks to government shutdowns, Jon was able to join us!

One of the first exhibits is the black-tipped shark reef.  It's a beautiful set-up, and you can see it from every floor of this buildling.  You can also go down below to catch a view of the sharks and the coral from under water.

Can you get a feel for this place? 
It's a pretty impressive exhibit as you first walk in on the ground floor.

This gorgeous sea turtle lives with the black-tipped sharks in the big exhibit.  She was brought to the Aquarium about ten years ago, wounded and dying.  She needed to have her front fin removed, but has grown here until she's now more than five hundred pounds.  I spent some quiet time (horray for midweek visits!) with this dear creature and just watched her magestic body move through the water.  She would come up for air every so often, once taking an audible breath just a foot or two away from me.  I leaned over the railing.  Some serious eye contact took place.  We're pretty tight.
 

 We went down into the series of shark tanks and watched divers feeding sting rays and other creatures by hand.

Glad there weren't any divers visiting this guy!

The teeth of a megalodon shark! These  fossils were found nearby along the Chesapeake Bay! 

Gorgeous!

 Isn't this fantastic!!!!!?  This is the underside of a ray  (I forget which kind of ray).   He swam toward us and then flipped over to swim away.  So cool!

watching the rays swim by...

Entering Australia!  The exhibits were so well done!

One thing we especially loved about the Aquarium was the high number of employees and volunteers willing to make the experience a rich one.  This lady took the time to let each of our kids feed the archer fish.  These creatures are so cool!  The fish would notice the (live) cricket on the end of our stick and then spit at the cricket with incredible accuracy and knock the insect into the water!

I'm a fan of this artwork!  So colourful, eh?  The whole day kept shouting out
the fact that the creatures of this earth are magnificent!!!!  So beautifully designed.

The rainforest exhibit included many water creatures, but was also surrounded with trees and birds and golden tamarins and sloths.  Very, very cool.

hmmmm... should we obey this sign on the pirahna tank or take this opportunity to rebel?

There was a spot tucked away in a corner where people could create poems or sentences about the ocean and ocean creatures.  The words would 'float' around this huge screen, making the author feel as proud as punch.  Marijka composed many poems!  The circle at the begining of each phrase was a picture, either one taken of the author by a built-in camera or an animal photo selected from several options.

Eeeep!  Aren't you glad to know that this little guy exists!!!!?  And aren't you glad to know that as you go about your day, there is a little gorgeous fish swimming around in the gorgeous coral, la-da-da-too-la-doo, living his little life as a creature while you live your life as a creature??  Love it.  Yup.  We bonded.