A fishy blog post (or, Little E’s trip to the sea)

Last year for little E’s birthday, I took him to the Tulsa Zoo. They had monkeys and elephants there, so he was happy, but I found the place kind of underwhelming. Funny story: this time a year ago, the Crapquest, erm, sorry, Mapquest directions to the Tulsa Zoo were so horribly and amazingly and utterly wrong that we got seriously lost and accidentally found our way to the Oklahoma Aquarium. If I had only known how hard the OK Aquarium rocks compared to the Tulsa Zoo, we would’ve stayed lost and gone there instead. So this year, the whole family went to hang out with the fishies.

Funny story: there was a family roaming around the OK Aquarium while we were there, complaining about how it was “nothing” compared to SeaWorld. True, there are no dolphins to pet or killer whales to exhale water on you, but that doesn’t mean that the OK Aquarium is lacking in any way. It really isn’t.

The Coral Reef viewing room has a tank that stretches around the viewing area in an almost 180-degree arc, and it’s just amazing stuff.

It might be silly to say that even the fish are friendly, but they are. Or at least they’re curious enough not to be shy.

There are several exhibits: fish and marine life that exhibit tremendous adaptability (so much for evolution not being a real force of nature, thankyouverymuch), ocean/saltwater fish, and indigenous Oklahoma fish, like the alligator gar.

Here’s little E meeting “Junior”, the baby alligator gar… but those aren’t Junior’s eyes…

Those are his nostrils…

…he sure looks like a happy fella, doesn’t he? He’s easily as big as Evan is. No wonder they were instant best buds. Finally, someone my own size to play with in this place!

There was also an Ozark Stream exhibit which featured live beavers and a playful young river otter. Here’s the Beav, and, presumably, his brother Wally.

Big turtles…

…and a tiny turtle race in progress.

I was fascinated by the chance to catch some video of jellyfish. I shot almost an hour of video total, and while I’m not going to even try to put myself in the same circle as professional underwater photographers, it was easy to shoot some incredible video in this place. Here are some shots of jellyfish that even my grandfather would be proud of.

This one was in a tank that was being kept dark, so I used night vision to shoot it, and it worked a treat.

Wow. Just wow.

Truly amazing stuff (not jellyfish-related).

Our favorite displays featured rays. There was a nice big tank where you could sit there and either look in from above, or look through windows at bench-level, like the one this shot was taken through.

I think I was the only non-kid who was sitting on the floor to watch this view.

Little E was fascinated.

Actually, it’s hard not to be fascinated by them.

And if you stand there at just the right time…

…a friendly one will come up and splash you!

There was another tank with no windows as well.

Here’s the real money shot: a ray burying itself in sand…

…for camouflage. You can’t see meeeeeeeee.

Here’s the entrance to the shark exhibit. It’s a tunnel that you descend into, with an observation dome in the middle.

In the middle of what? How about a few million gallons of shark-infested waters?

It was extremely difficult to shoot here, and I found up falling back on night vision again, though the 4-inch-thick acrylic tunnel and dome and the sheer volume of water meant that even the best videotaped glimpses of sharks were fleeting glimpses.

I could see them just fine with the naked eye (though the light level is awfully low down there), but my camera was just barely sensitive enough (and even here, the screen grabs are brightened and processed a great deal); the resulting video is very dark and disorienting.

Little E got more than a little spooked down here; he didn’t stay in the shark habitat very long.

I highly recommend a visit to the Oklahoma Aquarium for anyone within driving distance. Up to SeaWorld standards? Nope. But the many exhibits – of which these video grabs document only a tiny fraction – are truly interesting stuff. The kids will love it. I did too, which either means it’s for all ages, or I’m just a big kid.