Georgia Aquarium...

Bryan's Mom and Dad came down over Easter weekend, and we visited the Georgia Aquarium. It was Bryan's and my second time going, and it was just as spectacular as the first!

We walked through "Ocean Voyager" first... it was complete with sharks of all kinds, two Manta Rays, and four giant whale sharks!

We were just in time to see the whale shark feeding. It's hard to see in these pictures, but in the tops of the pictures, there is a raft with a person dumping krill into the whale sharks' mouths. The person announcing the feeding said that the whale sharks throat is only the diameter of a quarter!!

You can see the raft and the whale shark with it's mouth open in the following two pictures...

There was a penguin exhibit, but they had extreme difficulties holding still for a picture, so I had about 6 or 7 shots of black and white blur!

Some pretty tropical fish...

The American Alligators were especially photogenic. I think they might have thought we looked delicious.

"Come on in, the water's perfect!"

A few electric eels...

Pirhana!

Unfortunately, even after checking back a few times, the otter girls lay sleeping all afternoon. If I remember correctly from our last visit, the otters in this exhibit are all sisters.

And as terrible and wrong as it seems... looking at this Japanese Crab made us all crave crab legs...

The Beluga exhibit suffered the loss of their male whale, Nico, this past winter. They have a new male, Beethoven, along with the female, Maris.

I just noticed the sheepish-looking fish above the starfish in the picture below... he looks like he got caught doing something naughty!

Seahorses! The males incubate and give birth to the babies! I wonder if that means the females run to the store to buy pickles and ice cream for them?

Another creepy eel with the starfish...

I liked this view of all the little suction things on the underside of the starfish.

The giant octopus was hiding. They only live 3-5 years. Poor little thing.

I can't remember what these spiny fish were called, but I think they were poisonous.

We watched the little garden eels for several minutes... they "grow" like weeds, and then pull back into their little holes when fish swim by.

Sea anemones...

The Cuttlefish... we couldn't tell which end was the head, and which end was the tail!

Tangled-looking sea nettles. They sting like jellyfish.

They sort of resemble my hair in the morning...

This was the simulated tropical reef. We saw all of the cast of "Finding Nemo"!

Bryan's Mom and Dad in front of the reef...

If you look closely, you'll see the clownfish (Nemo) in the anemone.

Apparently all of their ridiculous splashing and diving and picture-avoiding earlier that day wore them out... I finally got a picture of the penguins resting before we left!

There were several "touch pools" to touch sharks, rays, and other creatures. I passed on the horseshoe crabs.

I only got blurry shots of the ever-moving loggerhead turtles.

Even though it looks like the shell is just perched on top of the purple-pink spiny blob, that blob lives inside of the white shell halves. You could also touch the blob, but I passed on it as well.

This Georgian Suckerfish was thought to be extinct... then they found some. Whew.

There were also real shrimp to touch. They don't look nearly as tasty when they are alive...

We made one more trip through Ocean Voyager before leaving... here's another shot of the whale sharks.

Have you ever eaten Grouper? Well, you're not going to want to after you see the look of sad disbelief on the giant grouper's face. He can't believe you'd actually eat him...

Don't you feel terrible?

We had a great time visiting with Bryan's parents... we can't wait until we're back in Indiana!