Two Oceans Aquarium

I spent all of Thursday in the hotel, although the rain eased and sun came out late as I did not get up especially early and just felt it better to stick around. Friday opened stormy and it has stayed that way, but my plan was to go to the aquarium.

South Africa is at the tip of the continent where the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet and mix, producing conditions for a diverse and abundant sea-life. There are over 2500 species of fish here, or 16% of all the diversity in the world, and of those, a fifth are found only here, so the aquarium has much to present the visitor.

It was pretty busy with a lot of quite young kids having a great time. I spent 3 hours here, and went over most of the exhibits rather quickly. It is one of the better aquariums I have ever been to with some magnificent large tanks, many very informative displays about just about every type of sea-life you can imagine. One large annex was dedicated to penguins of which there is a footprint to itself. There was also a very cool gallery for jellyfish. These brainless and heartless creatures range from fingernail size to over 200kg and in blooms have stopped aircraft carriers and shut down nuclear power plants. A big exhibit on sharks had a tank with some really big ones and a display with tons of cool information about the world's most deadly predator.Read more