South Carolina Aquarium

We went to the SC Aquarium Saturday morning for our last trip into Charleston!

Checking out the shark tank - there was a scuba diver in there cleaning the rocks and he came up to the window and waved at Ella and tried to get her to wave back or do a high five through the glass. She would have none of it and tried to hide on me instead!



Penguin diving


Building her own "penguin's nest"


Lots of fish!



A bald eagle


This is an albino alligator. He just hung there, with almost all of his weight balanced on his tail, for several minutes, even when they simulated a thunderstorm in his tank. He looks greenish in this picture but was really a completely pale cream color. It was neat learning about him, basically they are extremely rare because the albinism typically causes them to be eaten really early on in their lives, or get such bad sun damage that they die. This guy beat the odds though and here he is!



I thought this was pretty neat - this is a freight ship that came all the way from China, we saw it arriving at the port. It held so many containers and then there are these giant cranes several stories high that unload the containers.



Making a wish and throwing pennies in the fountain


We saw so many neat animals - sea otters, frogs, snakes, all kinds of fish, penguins, alligators (even a baby alligator!), sting rays, crabs, on and on...Later when we asked Ella what her favorite animal was, she said - "the fishies" - ha, fair enough, right?