While in Santa Cruz, I highly recommend you to visit this place called Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Exploration Centre. This blogpost shares about the Exploration Centre, what to expect here, some secret tips to make best of your visit etc. To start with, there is no entry ticket, so enjoy your free visit to the place and if you like it don't forget to donate. With that let's take a photo tour of Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Exploration Centre.
Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Exploration Centre has very education & trained staff. Many of them are volunteers who love the life in ocean and have spent significant time knowing about sea life. They are best to talk to if you need updates on marine-related activities and resources.
Exhibits are the heart of such facility. The Exploration Center has awesome audio visual media to educate with several interactive video kiosks, film and touchable exhibits to engage the visitor. It's awesome to experience things on your own and appreciate different kinds of sea life.
Please note that Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Exploration Centre is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. I liked the idea of closing down on Monday/Tuesday and ensure that it's on Saturdays & Sundays.
Sanctuary Exploration Center is located just steps away from the ocean and Santa Cruz Wharf. Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Exploration Centre features state-of-the art exhibits and interactive displays highlighting the sanctuary and its incredible underwater environment.
There is a theatre, where visitors can watch videos of under the sea surface of the sanctuary. The theatre is a multi-purpose room with flexible seating. Unfortunately not lot of folks watching this space. I sat down for few minutes and enjoyed brilliant videos talking about otters, sea lions, whales etc.
Please have a look at above photograph again and carefully notice the scale on the right side. This poster was depicting the size of a leatherback sea turtle. These are sometimes called the lute turtle or leathery turtle or simply the luth, is the largest of all living turtles and is the fourth-heaviest modern reptile behind three crocodilians. While at exploration centre, I also watched a video which showed how far these turtles go in the sea during different seasons. They go to different countries and then come back.
Leatherback sea turtles
can easily be differentiated from other modern sea turtles by its lack of a bony shell, hence thename. Above video shares some interesting facts about Leatherback sea turtles
Visitors here can explore the sanctuary's remarkable marine environment as well as their personal role in protecting one of our nation's underwater treasures. If you like the place, you can easily spend more than an hour here.
These whale teeth are places in Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Exploration Centre. While I was seeing them one of the volunteers came to me and explained about these and she felt that I am interested in seeing more. She opened a drawer and allowed me to touch hair set of a sea otter and a sea lion. One was super smooth and the other was rough. That was so awesome to experience. Those are not placed in open, so have to either request or ensure that a volunteers comes to you and you make them feel that would be keen in knowing more :).
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Above photograph shows preserved Whale Ear Bones in Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Exploration Centre. There are various models of predatory tunicate, dumbo octopus, eelpout, tumbleweed anemone, rockfish, sea cucumber, deep sea sole, bubblegum coral, blob sculpin, crab, yellow sponge, basket star, mushroom coral & fly-trap anemone etc.
Above photograph shows the view of ocean from first floor of Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Exploration Centre in Santa Cruz.
If you liked this post and found it helpful, I would request you to follow these things when traveling -
1. Manage your waste well and don’t litter Use dustbins.
2. Tell us if you went to a place and found it hard to locate a dustbin.
3. Avoid bottle waters in hills. Usually you get clean water in hills and water bottles create lot of mess in our ecosystem.
4. Say big no to plastic and avoid those unhealthy snacks packed in plastic bags. Rather buy fruits.
5. Don't play loud blaring music in forests of jungle camps. You are a guest in that ecosystem and disturbing the locals (humans and animals) is not polite
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