Vancouver Aquarium

Jellyfish, originally uploaded by Tim McDonald.

One of the places I'd been meaning to check out for AGES here in Vancouver, was the Aquarium. I don't know why I'd not visited sooner as for the last 4 months I have been a 20 minute walk from it (it's located just inside Stanley Park), but I finally got off my arse and went in.

It's pretty good, though much smaller than I imagined it to be. I imagined that it would house marine life from all over the world, but was very BC-centric. This is not such a bad thing though as I really didn't need to see a Platypus or fish from the Barrier Reef.

The Aquarium consists of about four or five main areas, indoors and outdoors. Indoors, one area shows off BC marine life (such as the jellyfish above). Another area is dedicated to the Amazon for reasons I'm not aware of. This area houses some of the giant fishes and caimans native to that part of the world. Adjoining this is a small replica Amazon rainforest replete with butterflies. It's climate controlled to recreate the heat and humidity of the Amazon rainforest, but it actually reminded me of home.

Outdoors there are four separate pool enclosures housing Sea Otters (I saw a couple in the wild on the beach during one of my morning runs along the Stanley Park Sea Wall); another housing Belugas (big white dolphin/whale/seal cross). I must have visited the Belugas at the wrong time of the day as they were literally just hanging around in the water. Perhaps they were sleeping. Moving along you come to the Sea Lion enclosure. These guys were huge and seemed much bigger than the ones in SA. I was much closer mind.

The last enclosure, the centrepiece of the Aquarium, is the 'Wild Coast' enclosure housing the Dolphins. These Dolphins are native to BC and are dark on top and light on the bottom. Their name escapes me now. At certain times of the day, there is a Dolphin feeding show. One benefit of the relative small size of the facility is that you can get quite close to the animals adding to the spectacle of the feeding show. The show lasts about 15 minutes and consists of the Dolphins performing a number of acrobatic trips for a fish reward. These Dolphins can propel themselves a great distance into the air (probably 10-15 feet) and is all the more impressive when you're 10 metres away from them. Well worth taking in if you visit.

Unfortunately, admittance is $20 for an adult, which, considering the size of the facility and the duration of the visit (about an hour) is probably too much. The Aquarium is self funded and non profit though, and you do get your hand stamped, allowing you to come and go as you please all day.