Hawaii Report #2

The next "educational" thing we did on our trip was a trip to the Maui Ocean Center. It is an amazing aquarium that gives you a glimpse into Hawaii's undersea world (like that? I got it from their website... LOL!). At first I wasn't sure about spending our time at just any old aquarium while on our trip. We have a membership to the Shedd here in Chicago so we're used to visiting an outstanding aquarium on a regular basis. But when we found out that this aquarium just focused on the marine creatures of Hawaii we decided to go.

We weren't disappointed either! It was a perfect complement to our coral reef study we had done the month before our trip. And it was a great preview into the coral reef world before our snorkeling trip.

Let me add the disclaimer to these photos that I really struggle with aquarium shots, so bear that in mind :-)

The first building was coral reefs...


Then outside in the courtyard were the shark and sea turtle tanks...
and a fountain...
The next building was focused on the marine mammals of Hawaii.

We were on a tour with the ship and thought it sounded like we had plenty of time to go through the whole thing... but we ended up losing track of time in the first building (coral reefs) and had to rush a bit through the last part in order to make it back to the bus.