John Wise

Breakfast was at the Red House Cafe just up the street from our hotel and around the corner from the glimmering sun shining on the bay. It was a good thing we showed up when we did as only about 15 later, the wait for people showing up went from “seated immediately,” like we were, to approximately 45 minutes. My frittata with avocado and a side of bacon and Caroline’s breakfast sandwich were both great, and while tempted to stick with what we know for tomorrow’s breakfast, we will be trying a place called Toasties Café.

The ulterior motive for finding places within walking distance of our hotel is that we have a parking place nearly in front of our door, and the aquarium is only a little more than a mile away, so we can walk nearly everywhere we need to be. And what’s not to love about these kinds of views?

This is the second day the Monterey Bay Aquarium has been open in more than a year, and here we are on opening weekend. Capacity has been greatly reduced, and the first two weeks are open exclusively to members only; lucky us. From more than 17,000 people on busy days, operations have been scaled down to only 1,700 as they experiment with what will work to keep staff and visitors safe. We’re in line and couldn’t be more excited, even if we were 5-year-olds going into Disneyland for the first time. As a matter of fact, this might as well be any theme park on Earth right now, making dreams come true.

During the first hour, only 200 visitors were let in. I can’t emphasize how perfect this is as we’ve been here on busy days that only discouraged the idea of ever wanting to return.

Our first stop was at the Kelp Forest, wherewith the pulse and sway of so much beauty, Caroline’s tears joined in the flow with the oh-so-familiar music, guaranteeing her emotions would go sailing. This is where the mandatory mask policy came in handy as not only do they hide the emotional outbreak on the lower half of her face, but the top of the mask can also be used to mop up tears that escape her eyes.

Like our drive at 18mph up the coast yesterday, we are trying to maintain a velocity that might confuse others into believing we are chitons, moving imperceptibly. We couldn’t tell you if anything has ever changed in the Kelp Forest over the years; for all we know, these are the exact same fish that were here on our very first visit back in 1991. We continue to sit right here, enchanted that there isn’t a massive crowd forming, just us and the sway reminiscent of the tide pushing things to and fro.

The elusive octopus remained so and spurred Caroline into wondering if a donation of sufficient bribery size might get us into a behind-the-scenes opportunity to have a close encounter with one of these fascinating creatures. I think we’ll likely inquire with management tomorrow how something like this could come to pass.

We are not competing with others to gain close-up views of the fish; we don’t have to allow small children to step through to have their moment, as everyone is following social distancing guidelines and remaining appropriately separated.

While hard to see, I’m posting these skeleton shrimp today because tomorrow I may not get one even this good, if this can be considered that. These guys or gals are tiny, and how a guide we had years ago while kayaking the Strait of Juan de Fuca saw one in some kelp at the surface still remains a mystery to me.

You might think we’ve grown tired of seeing anemones due to the numbers of them seen in tidepools and snorkeling over the many years we’ve been exploring coastal waters, but you’d be wrong, as all anemones are special in our eyes. Should you ever be so lucky to visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium, you’ll see hundreds of these creatures on display and will likely be inclined to start naming them just as we do. This particular specimen is named Ganymede Jones.

I took a really nice photo of this American Avocet head-on, but you can’t see the curve in its beak, so I chose my second favorite. The other 72 pictures I took of this bird didn’t make the cut. Seriously though, I didn’t take quite that many.

If you are familiar with the aquarium, you’ll know that we are upstairs in the Splash Zone, where the tropical fish and penguins reside.

This is probably for kids, but Caroline fit so back into the egg she went. Back, you ask? Caroline was once an egg found under a cabbage leaf many years ago. Click here for proof.

Steve the Eel was happy to welcome us back after our four-year absence. That he still remembered us was a big surprise, but seeing his smile again warmed our hearts just as it did on our first encounter.

If you, too, are thinking I should consider starting a side business in fish portraiture, I’m inclined to believe there’s an opportunity here going untapped.

While it was already lunchtime when I started writing this, our meal was done, and Caroline was nearly finished with her can of Alvarado Street Pils she mixed with a bottle of Lemon Seltzer. We need to get walking again as we only have about three hours left here. It’ll be evening by the time I get to transfer the hundreds of photos I shot today with hopes of reducing the count to a mere couple of dozen, maybe three dozen, but seriously, no more than that.

We know our way around the aquarium, and while on one hand, the beautiful weather here in the Monterey Bay begs us to be out there listening to the shorebirds and crashing surf right now, we’ll have plenty of opportunities to linger out here in the next few days.

With two days available to visit the aquarium, there is no rush. If we feel like lingering, we have all the luxury in the world to do just that.

It was just about here that Caroline gasped in the horror of recognizing that having salmon poke for lunch with a beer produces burps that back-flow from the mask right into the nose and they aren’t pretty. Hopefully, my wife doesn’t edit out this bit of too-much-info [I was sorely tempted – Caroline].

If I had to wager, I’d say that the jellies and the otters are the two most popular exhibits, and for good reason. The otters look cuddly and sweet, though if you saw one of them captured, you’d be rightfully afraid of them. Otters are big and pry open clams with their bare paws, so while their images are sold as a loving plushy, just ask the last bird that was pulled into its maw how cute these creatures are. Jellies, on the other hand, excluding the Portuguese Man o’ War, are non-aggressive angelic floating sea clouds that pose on command, showing the wonders of the universe in their psychedelic inner folds where time dissolves into the sea.

The nemesis tank is how I refer to this giant window on the deeper ocean. While always entertaining with its tuna darting around and a couple of turtles swimming around above them, it is notoriously difficult to photograph those things that ply the waters of the Open Ocean.

Every visit to the aquarium we’ve ever made has always introduced us to creatures we’ve never seen before but there are consequences that come with that.

Certain animals on display you might hope to see on a subsequent visit might be replaced and so it was with the missing nautiloids that disappeared years ago and the giant cuttlefish that change colors. Well, at least there are these squids that are obviously from an alien dimension theorized to exist by Michio Kaku in his landmark book, “Squids Are Smarter Than You And Are Aliens.”

Mini cuttlefish were better than no cuttlefish. I’m asking Caroline to have this engraved on the tombstone I won’t have, as my instructions are to be cremated upon death so this is a non-starter for deeper conversations that might include anybody else’s opinions for what is appropriate.

Staring at this photo, hopelessly lost for something witty to write about it, I got to thinking about cloning and splicing DNA, especially in human genetics, and realized that cuttlefish or squid DNA responsible for the wild gyrations in color would be conducive to offering future generations of people some truly unique appearance characteristics.

Well, here it is at 4:00 p.m. with an hour to go before the aquarium closes, and it’s time for a coffee and a large glass of water. For while we are surrounded by water, I find very few fountains to slake my thirst; that or I’m too focused on taking 1000s of photos. (Okay, it’s only 609 so far). Actually, I don’t really want to write anything at the moment, as watching the waves roll in while sipping my coffee is mesmerizing. It’s almost strange how soothing the ocean is on a calm sunny day when one stops to think of the roiling abyss that, to a human lost in the middle of it, would appear to be an inescapable infinity. But there it is in all of its mystery, somehow talking to me, reassuring my senses that everything is fine.

In forty-five minutes, the aquarium will close, and while we have all day here tomorrow, we are considering asking for passes for a 3:00 p.m. entry on…nope, I was just reminded that this place is closed on Tuesday and Wednesday for cleaning and evaluating how the first few days of being open are going. And after learning that, we now have about 30 minutes to race through the kelp exhibit. Time to run, but I’ll return.

The lights are being turned off, and the fish are snuggling up as they pair off to head to sleepy land, or would that be a watery world?

As for us, we headed over to Wonju Restaurant, a Korean place we ate at the last time we were in Monterey. After the carnage of a year without tourism, the other Korean restaurants shut down and this one is hopeful to survive after being at the same location for 27 years now. Do we have recommendations here? Well, I’ll vouch for the Bibimbap being a solid and hearty dish; while Caroline’s flounder and tofu soup was great, I know it was great because I tried it.

The temperature was dropping fast as the sun dipped out of the sky. While both of us would have enjoyed staying out for another hour or two, I’m trying my best not to fall too far behind in blogging about our experience before we’ve collected even more impressions further down the road.