We went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium today to see their newest sea otter, Kit. Kit is a very special sea otter since she’s only 11 weeks old!
We decided to go this afternoon. We got to the aquarium about 3 and there were a lot of people on the street. I figured the aquarium might be crowded but it wasn’t. We walked up to the sea otter exhibit and I was really surprised at how big Kit is! I had expected a small otter but she was about 2/3 the size of the adult in the tank with her.

Kit aged 11 weeks
We found a good place to watch and they put on a fantastic show! Kit is very energetic and playful and Mae was more active than I’ve seen her for years! They swam, they explored their tank and had a great time. Kit was checking out everything she could; this was her second day in the exhibit. Mae was being a good babysitter and tried to keep up with her and pull her out of the trouble. We discovered that there’s a tunnel for the otters in the tank! We’ve been watching sea otters for the past 25+ years and didn’t know that existed. But a baby otter goes everyplace she can so she went in one side and came out the other one! As you can see, Alex and I were thrilled to be watching them!

Alex and me

Kit
It was great to see how Mae tried to care for this little one. The docent who was talking to visitors said that Mae had not shown any maternal instinct before. They were delighted that she was taking such good care of Kit. Even though Kit will be staying at the aquarium, Mae will be a lot of help in teaching Kit what she needs to know.

Mae and Kit
She is a very curious sea otter. Sometimes I think she was checking us out as much as we were looking at her. Rob took a lot of pictures and these are some of the best ones!

Kit looking at us
Megan really enjoyed seeing the otters too. Kit swam by the window where we were standing a number of times and she seemed to enjoy looking at us – assuming that she can see through the glass. Rob was behind the camera so there’s no picture of him enjoying the otters!

Megan and Kit
Since we were at the aquarium and it was not crowded at all, we decided to visit some of our favorite exhibits. Since I love penguins we needed to see them. They were quiet after a hard day of looking cute for their visitors. But Betty was enjoying watching the humans still! (She has a tag on her wing which gave us her name.)

My new friend Betty and me
Since there were so few people around we were able to get some good photos of the leafy sea dragons and the weedy sea dragons. They are sensitive to light and so you can’t use the flash on your camera. This makes getting a good photo of them hard – especially if there’s other people running into you. Rob was able to get some good ones this time.

Leafy sea dragon
We had just about given up getting a good photo of the weedy sea dragon. They were swimming at the back of the tank. Then one decided to swim at the front of the tank and so we got some pictures of him. Rob and I think that this species deserves a better name than “weedy sea dragon”. This guy has such interesting textures and color combinations…

Weedy sea dragon
I’m sure we’ll be visiting the aquarium again soon (the new flamingo exhibit opens in late March). We usually go in the late morning, see exhibits, eat lunch, and see more exhibits. But I really liked how much less crowded it was late this afternoon. I think we may start a new pattern for our visits!
We had a good dinner at Peppers, a very good Cali/Mexican restaurant in Pacific Grove. It was a really great day and I’m so glad Rob could share it with us.