More Marine Discovering

Our recent interest in marine biology roused me to make enquiries for a few more
excursions at the beach before Summer's over.

We had completed an outing at the Dolphin Research Institute last year, and early this year we joined up with a small group to visit the Marine Discovery Centre in Queenscliff. The planned activity was to go snorkelling, but with rough weather coming in, snorkelling wasn't going to be safe. 

 Instead, we enjoyed a session at the centre, where all the children could participate in 

feeding the marine life. Then, we headed to the beach for a beach combing session. 

 Here's a summary of our day:

Two volunteers fed these fish.  One dropped food in for the fast swimmers,

whilst the other made sure the slower swimmers got their share

A discussion of shellfish and their exoskeletons.

This was a lobster's exoskeleton, showing where it 

emerged from the centre of it's underside.

A taxidermied exoskeleton of a puffer fish.

This one had died whilst in fright.

The seahorses literally 'snapping' up the brine shrimp.

(Apologies for the exposure problem!)

 Then it was Mariposa's turn. 

She firmly held onto a prawn while the puffer fish came to feed from her hand.

With the puffer fish fed, it was safe enough to feed 

the abalone their sea lettuce.

Finding their mouths required lots of calling out from the viewing side:

"left" "your left!"

"down" "now right" ... 

This was made even funnier when one didn't want to eat!

I wasn't quick enough to photograph this starfish eating

before it was place back in the pool right side up,

but we did see it's stomach come out of the body and 

grab the food it was handed.

Once on the beach, we found lots of interesting things washed up.  

This was actually helped by the fact that the sea was quite rough.

Herbivorous sea snail

... there were a few of these found.

Sea urchin exoskeleton, with most of the spines already fallen off.

Cute little periwinkles.

If your hands were damp, they'd come out of their shells.

The staff were wonderful and kept the children's interest all day.

We're looking forward to a time when we can come back and try out snorkelling

... weather permitting. :)

Thank you for dropping by!