Mystic Aquarium and Seaport

On Wednesday, we went to Mystic to visit the Aquarium and the Seaport. Mystic is not an actual "town" in Connecticut; it's an old seaport village that (I think) has been given historical status. No matter, it's there and we went.

The Aquarium was fun. There are a few nice outdoor enclosures and we got there just in time to see the feedings. Unfortunately, they fed all the outdoor exhibits at the same time so you really could only watch one. We chose to watch the Beluga whales get fed. (Though we did visit all the exhibits.)

They also train the whales to play with toys, a practice the Aquarium describes not as "playing with toys" or "fetch" but as "enrichment." With no enrichment, the poor whales can only swim, eat, sleep, and play all day. I don't know how those deprived whales in the wild manage to get along without enrichment.



We also saw some fat sea lions and fur seals.



And some penguins. Who doesn't love penguins?



The kids also got a chance to pet Stingrays and skates. "Slimy," was how Jess described them.



There's also an indoor area with lots of tanks. Here are some random shots:




Many of the fish and animals were nice enough to let me take a decent picture. Still, there was one that I just couldn't get a good shot of. Very elusive, this one, quite camera shy. Here's a partial shot.



We had a great time at the Aquarium, but the Seaport was a different story. It felt like a ghost town. Many of the exhibits were old shipyard buildings set up to appear just as they did 100 years ago. They succeeded: everything looked 100 years old. There were some old sailing boats, but only a couple of sails were up and none of the big sails. The ships looked a bit like skeletons. The bigger problem was that the exhibits were not well posted with explanations and details. Many seemed like abandoned buildings with some old dusty tools and goods left behind. There were a handful of "reenactors" posing as sailors or artisans, but not enough. We were all rather disappointed.

Hello? Is there anybody here?!


Ah, an empty building. What excitement!


Amy and Jess heading for the lighthouse.


At least Ian got to be chomped by a whale. Crunch, crunch.


And we did get a nice group shot, so it wasn't a total waste of time.


Afterwards we went home and made ice cream sundaes. That makes any day a success.