In his novel by the same name, local boy John Steinbeck described Cannery Row along Monterey Bay as “a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tune, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream,” and also as a corrugated collection of sardine canneries, restaurants, honky-tonks, whorehouses, and waterfront laboratories. The street, he said, groaned under the weight of “silver rivers of fish.” After the sardines were fished out here and elsewhere along the California coast, people still liked his description so much that put it on a plaque and planted it in today’s touristy Cannery Row, among the few buildings that still remain from the Steinbeck era.
But fish are back on Cannery Row, at least at the west end, where Monterey borders Pacific Grove. The Monterey Bay Aquarium on Cannery Row is a world-class cluster of fish tanks built into the converted Hovden Cannery.
Luring million of visitors every year since it opened in 1984, Monterey’s exceptional sea-life attraction is the brainchild of marine biologist Nancy Packard and her sister, aquarium director Julie Packard. Much help came from Hewlett-Packard computer magnate David Packard and wife, Lucile, who supported the launch of this nonprofit, educational endeavor with a $55 million donation to their daughters’ cause. Not coincidentally, David Packard also personally designed many of the unique technological features of the major exhibits here.
Through the aquarium’s foundation, the facility also conducts its own research and environmental education and wildlife rescue programs. The aquarium’s Seafood Watch program, for example, tells you which fish and seafood choices are best, to support healthy ocean ecology. And did you know that 90 percent of the world’s seabirds have plastic in their stomachs, taking the place of food? Much of our plastic waste ultimately ends up in the ocean. Researchers say that if we don’t give up the disposable-plastics habit, in all its forms, by 2050 there will be more plastic fish in the ocean. And of course there’s climate change and the acidification of the world’s oceans, a direct threat not only to ocean life but to all life. The Monterey Bay Aquarium explains that sad reality too, which makes perfect sense. The aquarium’s mission is to inspire ocean conservation.
But people don’t come to the aquarium for a real-time horror show. (And here, even the worst news is presented positively, pointing, with hope, to what we can all do.) People come because they want to get as close as possible to the magnificent creatures and plants that live just offshore in the depths of Monterey Bay, and beyond. The aquarium’s philosophy is “endorsing human interaction” with the natural world, which is everywhere apparent. From a multilevel view of kelp forests in perpetual motion to face-to-face encounters with sharks and wolf eels, from petting the velvety backs of bat rays and starfish in “touch pools” to watching African penguins making their nests and sea otters feed and frolic, here people can observe the marine plants and wildlife up close and personal.
And how about taking a deep-sea dive? The aquarium’s 360-degree underwater video projection in the Mission to the Deep exhibit feels as real as actual deep, dark dives researchers take to monitor the ocean’s well-being. Check out that Black-Eyed Squid, a deep-water Monterey Bay dweller who carries her eggs in her arms rather than lay them on the ocean floor like shallow-water squid. Then there’s that Big Red Jelly, which gets bigger than a basketball, and the scavenging Vampire Squid. And fierce but tiny Fangtooth, a tiny but fierce fish that looks like it’s wearing a Hannibal Lector mask. But people can only go down so far, so sometimes the aquarium sends robots, or unmanned underwater vehicles to check out California earthquake activity from offshore, say, or volcanic activity.
People just love the Monterey Bay Aquarium, perhaps in part because communing with ocean life in all its exhibits makes it possible to forget about being people. For a while at least, visitors can imagine being a shark, or a sea turtle. You can keep the fantasy alive still longer on special sleepovers and tours and even vicarious visitations via eight different live web cameras. The web cams take you from the open ocean to Monterey Bay and sea otter and seabird habitats.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium is a popular place, so be sure to get tickets in advance. Avoid feeling like a canned sardine by coming in the off-season, on a week day if at all possible.
