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A few hours drive south of San Francisco is the Monterey Peninsula, a wonderful place to see, explore and live. We always like to see the ocean and walk along the beach at Carmel.

We decided, for this three-day outing, to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. This is, perhaps, the most beautiful and celebrated aquarium in the world. The buildings, that were once dilapidated remains of old fish cannery factories, have been restored to a magnificent structure for the wildlife of the ocean and Monterey Bay, in particular. Inside is a display of the history of Cannery Row with examples and photographs of the sardine processing and the story of its decline during WWII.

There are several huge tanks with a wide variety of fish including rays, sharks, tuna, rockfish, and a large octopus. The first viewing area shows a kelp bed such as abound in the bay outside. Every time we come here I am reminded of the scuba diving we did along these shores and how we swam amongst the swaying stalks of kelp and various creatures.

Two display tanks are for the sea otters, the playful animals that can be seen floating on their backs amongst the kelp while using rocks to open shell fish with their claws. In addition there is a small outdoors area for some of the shore birds and a section where a large wave crashes across the passage way. The 'touch' pools with star-fish, sea-anemones and shell-fish are usually for kids, but today they were more for us older folks.

The most spectacular displays (at least in our opinion) are the various jelly fish.

The last thing, of course, is to shop. Then it was back to our hotel room, dinner and a nice sunset as the fog started to roll in over the peninsula.

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