Sea World: Rays and Touch Pools

My other favorite spot at Sea World is the "Forbidden Reef."  There you can find a large open tank full of rays that you can touch and feed.  I remember Kim taking me there back in 2006 for my first experience at Sea World and I quickly fell in love.  The squid you can buy is a bit pricey, but totally worth it.  You put a squid in between your fingers and then place your hand low in the water.  The rays will then swim over your hand and suck the squid up into their mouths like a vacuum.  It's a little freaky at first since their suction is quite strong.  A couple times my hand has been sucked up into their mouths.  But each time I go to Sea World now, it's a tradition to feed the rays.  I don't know how much Daxton really understands as he's experiencing these different things, but I do know that he was having a great time splashing and feeling the slippery rays.  He did not want to leave!

Dallas helped Daxton while Kim helped Lydia.

One of the rays came right up to Daxtons little hands.  He got to touch the "nose."

Getting ready to feed the rays.
Great photo bomb, Michelle!

Brooks was covered with water by the time he was finished feeding the rays.  It was pretty cute to see him grabbing the squid and watching his face light up when the rays would suck it from his hand.

After we fed the rays, we wondered over to the Tide pools.  This was Daxton's favorite spot from the whole day.  He loved touching all the different sea stars and splashing in the water.  I had to watch him closely though, because he got VERY excited about holding the sea stars.  At one point he tried to shake it high above his head, poor little starfish!  I had images of Darla from Finding Nemo!

He also tried to bite several of the starfish, so we had to have a talk about not eating the sea stars.

Note the sign that the starfish need to remain underwater to breath...it was quite difficult to convince that to Daxton.  It was so much fun to watch his curious nature shine through.  He's going to be so independent and opinionated (lucky me!) but I love how excited he was during our time at the touch pools.  Maybe we have a future marine biologist on our hands.