Maine State Aquarium

We seem to find ourselves around the Portland, Maine area quite a lot.

I had heard an advertisement on the radio that Cirque de Soleil was going to be in Portland.  We saw a Cirque in Vegas back in 2007 and really enjoyed it so we decided to get tickets to the 1:30 show.  This was Cirque de Soleil's first show on ice, and featured a great deal more dancing and storytelling than the previous show. It was well done and entertaining, but not as "amazing" as the Las Vegas show.

We planned to stay in Portland for four days so we had to find a few other things to do.  Mark had several disc golf courses he wanted to play and I found a couple of places I wanted to visit.  The next morning, we headed to one of Mark’s favorite disc golf courses - Sabattus.  There are three 18-hole courses here along with a free 9-hole course.  He’s played all the 18-hole courses before. 

After disc golf we headed to the Maine State Aquarium.  With an entrance fee of $7, I didn’t expect it to be a very big place.

It is a very small aquarium but they have all the usual things.  A 20’ touch tank took up most of the inside area. In addition to other animals they had this absolutely enormous Horseshoe Crab.

There was also a shark tank.

Chain Catshark

These deep-water sharks have a unique pigment in their skin that allows them to glow-in-the-dark.

Lots of small tanks were all around the aquarium.

Starfish

Skate

A baby skate is developing inside the egg case.

Ocean Pout

We were just in time for a program about lobsters.  The hour-long program was very interesting and we learned a lot about lobsters.

Albino Lobster

Vintage traps

Blue Lobster

Sizes of lobsters.

On our way to our car we saw signs for a Discovery Center.  It turned out to be mostly for children but we had fun playing with the toys.

Chromatophores are organs that are present in the skin of many cephalopods, such as squids, cuttlefish, and octopuses, which contain pigment sacs that become more visible as small radial muscles pull the sac open making the pigment expand under the skin.

After a late lunch Mark played another 18-holes of disc golf and we called it a day.

Next time - More disc golf and the Maine Maritime Museum