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In our quest to see every animal in Africa, our big stop of the day was the Two Oceans Aquarium. Apparently they were inspired to name the place after the two oceans, Indian and Atlantic that meet here in Cape Town. Maybe they just stole the idea from our state of Minnesota that names it’s lakes; “Big Lake”, “ Small Lake” “Round Lake.” Who knows?

The Aquarium is located at the waterfront at a complex called the Victoria and Albert Wharf. It is a large mall, shopping area and entertainment complex. It is beautiful and serves as a great cultural anchor for the entire waterfront of Cape Town. Before we went to the Aquarium we stopped in to buy our tickets for the ferry ride out to Robben Island for tomorrow. This is where Nelson Mandela spent eighteen years as a political prisoner. A can’ t miss for out trip.

On our way out of the ferry terminal we ran into some people we knew who were learning to ride the Segway electric scooter. The next thing we know the kids were getting free lessons on how to ride this machine. It is really cool as it has a series of gyros on board and sense which way you are leaning. The machine in turn will move in the direction that you are leaning. The kids took to it immediately. It was fun to watch.

One additional and unplanned stop on our way across the complex was to the local LL Bean equivalent store. Here it is called Cape Union. They have a cool climbing wall in the store and kids wanted to climb it again (they did so once before a few days ago.) Both really enjoy this type of climbing so we are looking into a few true mountain climbing lessons while we are here.

It’s always fun to see an animal eating, so we timed our visit to coincide with the feeding of the penguins. Spiraling up the stairs to catch the lunch we streaked past strollers littering the sides of the walls. It was a cold day and the penguin area was wall-to-wall rug rats leaning anxiously against the small wall to see well. Our kids wiggled their way in for a good view.

The feeders came out and all the penguins rushed them, flippers flopping everywhere. One poor guy got knocked down in the process. The hand feeding began. One fish was individually shoved halfway down each penguin’s throat. Once he had the fish, he’d run away from all his buddies to the water so he could eat it by himself. The bigger fish were placed in the mouths of the larger penguins. The smaller fish were given to the smaller guys. If the feeder didn’t put the fish far enough down their throats, they would drop the fish and not be able to pick it up again. No chewing was involved what so ever. Penguins must have incredible stomach acid to be able to break down whole fish.

Our next stop was the shark tank. Both Carl and I wish we had our open water scuba dive qualifications. If we had them, we could get into the tank and feed the sharks. How awesome would that be? The scuba qualification will have to wait until we hit warmer waters. No open water dives for me in 45-degree water off the coast here. We both will be good to go before the Great Barrier Reef however.

The shark tank was the largest in the aquarium, some 220,000 liters of water, more than all the rest of the tanks combined. The four ragged tooth sharks in the tank didn’t seem to scare any of the other fish, stingrays or the lone sea turtle in the tank. One fish seemed to think one of the sharks would be a good place to catch a draft and swam next to it the entire time. The sea turtle liked to show off and would swim up and down the wall of the tank next to all the people. The fish were all huge. Most were over 2 feet long and at least 8 inches tall. They could feed a village for a week.

The rest of the aquarium was stocked with brightly colored fish and crustaceans. The African King Crab is HUGE. One of its spidery legs was over 2 feet long. It also had amazing dexterity. It could lean back and balance itself on only two of its six legs. Very cool. Upon seeing the lobster tank, we all immediately thought of Maine, and got really hungry. It was time to head out and get some food.

Our drive home took us past picturesque Camps Bay at sunset. Camps Bay is where all the beautiful people come during the summer (Dec- Feb). We had to stop and create some images of the Twelve Apostles. The beach had more dogs than people on it. The dogs ran and played in the surf. All the humans stayed well away from the water. Couples walked hand in hand up and down the beach. Birds squawked overhead. It is a busy place. Connor loved climbing on all the huge rocks. He harbors no fear and will jump his little body across any crevice he sees. Scares Mom to death. The sand here is soft and the beach wide. Except for the huge mountains in the background and the boulders in the water it reminded me of our beaches back in St. Petersburg.

Tomorrow we head out to Robben Island to see where the brave men who stood up to the Apartheid regime spent years of their lives.

Tags: Cape Town, Fish, South Africa, Travel

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 1st, 2005 at 12:00 pm and is filed under South Africa, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.