Another Safari.. The Water Kind

After the Monterey Bay Aquarium, we ventured onto another Safari.. the boat kind. Owned by Captain Yohn Gideon, the Elkhorn Slough Safari in Moss Landing provides a great view of wildlife of sea otters, harbor seals, sea lions and hundreds of birds. We boarded a pontoon boat for this 2 hour tour.

We meet the Captain at their van in the harbor parking lot.

We all put on life jackets (even though the ride was very smooth and not very fast.. just my style!)

The younger kids got to look for specific animals and the older kids played Safari Bingo. Hannah was in charge of looking for sea otters. Which we saw almost 100!

As we were leaving the harbor we spotted many pelicans. They are aggressive and very sharp birds. They dive quite quickly for fish in the water and more than once we saw something wiggling in their pouched mouths. They definitely remind me of 'Nigel' from Nemo.

These are brown pelicans who catch their prey while diving into the water and scooping the fish up into it's beak.

These are American white pelicans, who unlike the brown pelicans, catches it's prey while swimming.

This is a 'raft' or group of male or 'bull' sea lions. (the term 'raft' sure makes sense here). The sexes usually are segregated by choice. The females are with their 'pups' at another location. We saw over 300 sea lions during this tour.

This is a blue heron. I was in charge of counting them during the tour. I saw only 5.

This is a snowy egret. We saw over 20 of those up close....

...and there were probably hundreds more up in the eucalyptus trees.

These harbor seals were so cute! We saw almost 100 of them. A group of seals is called a 'harem'.

The shore was so shallow that these seals were just lying on the muddy floor.

Now you may ask.. what is the difference between sea lions, seals and otters? I didn't know until I saw a lot of them and then I noticed very distinct differences. Sea lions have big front flippers, a longer neck area and are extremely vocal with their dog-like barks, are brown and much larger than seals. Seals, on the other hand, have smaller and shorter flippers, are gray or tan and spotted and are very quiet making minimal, if any, sounds.

The otters looked just like the pictures on postcards I see in the aquarium. Many of them were on their back with their feet and paws up out of the water. They do this to keep their extremities warm because the water makes it very cold. Their fur is much 'furrier' than the seals and sea lions and they have long slim bodies with short limbs and webbed paws. Their two-layered fur is very soft (under layer) which is protected by an outer layer of long guard hair.  This traps a layer of air and keeps them dry and warm under water. Many of these otters were eating up a storm! They used a rock or small hard object to crack their food open.

When you look closely at each of these sea animals faces, you can definitely tell that they were very different. Sea lions, seals and otters faces do not look the same.

We saw over 60 otters!

This one loves his clam!

We also saw about a dozen huge jellyfish. This is the sea nettle.. I never saw one in the wild. So it was amazing to see it right off the boat's edge. The captain said that this was one of the first days this year that there were so many jellyfish at one sighting.

This is the egg yolk jellyfish.. it was really huge! I was so glad I was NOT in the water because both of these can sting pretty badly!

After the older kids got black out on their Bingo at the end of the tour, they each got a Junior Ranger Naturalist Certificate and a special treat.. but only if they became 'bird-like'. Here's Shawna doing her best bird imitation!