Oregon Coast Aquarium

Spring Break arrived and my family decided to spend a few days touring the more central part of the Oregon coast. Although we live on the coast, we don’t go down south too often, and decided that we would take advantage of the time that we got off from Spring Break. Most of our time was spent in either Newport of Lincoln City.

One of the places that we made sure to visit was the Oregon Coast Aquarium. We visited it a few years ago, but it had been awhile, and so we decided to visit it again. It is a cool aquarium and is rated in the top 10 aquariums by USA Today. I snapped a couple of pics of the place.

There was a building that you could go into with a name along the lines of “In to the Deep.” It featured three giant tanks—that you walk right through. From this picture you can see the tunnels that you could walk through. Even the floor featured some glass. It’s pretty amazing to watch marine life swim all around you.

The tanks even featured some sharks. Not Great Whites, but they still had some that you wouldn’t want to be swimming with.

From here you can sort of get an idea of what the tunnel was like to be in. This was a sting ray swimming above my head.

The aquarium feature a bunch of exotic fish as well. 

This isn’t your typical pet fish, though it would be cool to have one of these as a pet. 

  

I found Dory, now only Nemo is left to look for. I keep forgetting what movie their from. :-)

Oregon Responder Tour

Recently I had the chance to go visit the Oregon Responder with my Venturing Crew. It one of few select ships that are sent out to clean up the massive oil spills in the ocean that often make the news. I didn’t realize that the ship for the Oregon coast area was situated in Astoria.

It was a cool ship to tour, and isn’t you average boat. It is equipped with many special features to help aid it in its tasks. I decided to take a few pictures of the things that I saw. Below are the pics.

The boat had two cranes that could be used on board.

There was a boat that could be sent out for smaller items. It had a unique rail system that it was on. Because of this, it just slid off the boat and into the water.

As technology has advanced, it has slowly made its way over to the marine world. The new information computer shown right here is one such example.

A sign the sums up what this ship is all about.

The big hose and air piston boom used to suck up the oil. It was night when we toured the ship so that is the reason for the dark. 

Every ship must have a eating area, no matter what type it is.

 

One of the giant generators used to give electricity to the ship. 

The star of the show, the giant oil consuming hose, all coiled up.