Sea Urchin in an aquarium at the Ty Warner Sea Center in Santa Barbara, CA

I really enjoyed the Monterey Bay Aquarium, so I had to drag my wife to the closest thing we have in Santa Barbara, the Ty Warner Sea Center. The scale is not really comparable, but the people there are really nice and they have some cool hands on things you can do. Since they are out on Stearns Wharf, they can actually drop experiments down through a big hole in the floor.

Right now the Sea Center has a "Camouflage" display including all kinds of critters that are good at hiding. I don't think this guy was actually part of that display, but he was doing his best with that nice collection of sea-weed. The nice blue background was my wife's idea. She offered to stand behind the aquarium in her nice blue shirt.