The Maui Aquarium

Abby had to go to the airport that evening so we were trying to decide if we would have time to come back and get her bags.  Tyler seemed confused.  "But we will have almost 5 hours from the time we get there until she needs to go to the airport.  There is no way we will stay there 5 hours."  Richard and I smiled and Abby looked at Tyler with what may have been pity.  "Oh no, Richard can spend 5 hours in an aquarium easily."  (me) "Me too, especially since we are going without kids."  We spent 4 1/2 hours there and could have easily spent another hour or two.  I am going to try to keep the fish pictures to a minimum.  

This is a Surgeon fish.  See the orange area at the base of his tail?  Those are two sharp scalpel-like spines, thus the name.  We saw these all over snorkeling, they are beautiful!.

And this is a Lagoon Trigger fish.  It has the same Hawaiian name as the state fish but looks a little different.

This is the state fish: Huma huma nuka nuka apua'a, or Wedgetail Triggerfish.

And this one is my favorite, the Huma huma nuka nuka apua'a, or Lagoon Triggerfish.  

The Moray Eel.  I saw two of these guys while snorkeling.  I think the boys saw more than that.  

Just look at that grumpy face!  That is the Scorpion fish and they have poisonous spines on their back, which I think it pretty unfair since they look just like a grumpy rock and could easily get stepped on.  I thought these ones were pretty big (I dunno...8 inches long?) but the boys found one while snorkeling that was over a foot long.  They said they were chasing one fish into a cave when suddenly, a big white mouth appeared in a rock!  

This little guy is only 1 year old.

This Stingray was enormous!

It was feeding time and this girl was swimming with silver jacks, white tip sharks, black tip sharks, grey reef sharks, and one tiger shark (yikes!).  Just look at how big the silver jack fish are!  When they are feeding they turn black because of some hormonal change.  

The tiger shark.  I can't remember her Hawaiian name but they have an official Hawaiian namer guy who comes in for every Tiger shark and watches them for hours to come up with a suitable Hawaiian name.  Her name means, "The one who does the right thing".  

Two year old turtle

I some times get so excited seeing animals that I don't usually see that I take a million pictures of them and forget about the people I am with.  But I have found that later, when I think back on the experience, I don't actually care as much about the animals, I care about the reactions of the people.  We had such a good time doing the aquarium in my favorite fashion:  reading every placard, listening to the audio guide, and excitedly telling each other about the interesting fact we had just learned.  Richard was the official question answerer and would turn to Abby for facts he couldn't quite remember.  Both of them told us even more information they had acquired about certain animals. We all pointed out hard to spot creatures and laughed over the odd ones.  Nothing brings out the best in us like learning and animals.  I love these pictures because you can almost hear the comments we are making and feel the awe we feel.  

This is one of my favorite pictures, I only wish that Richard was in focus, I would print this and hang it somewhere.  Maybe I still will.

Silly Tyler.  5 hours enough time?  Don't you know me and Richard by now?