In my last post, I put up pictures of the landscaping in the Atlantis waterpark, to give you an idea of what it looked like, what kind of swimming there was, etc. But I noticed that I didn't really have any pictures of the pools, just of the beach. You can see all the pictures of the swimming pool, including the big waterslide that we went down and the slide that went through the predator pool, if you go to the Atlantis website. Just go to the photo gallery, then to the 'Activities' pictures, and you can see it all. I was going to get the pictures from the website, but they have the whole privacy thing going on, and I didn't feel like going in and viewing source and all that, so if you want to see you can look for yourself!
So today, I'm going to put up the pictures of the Marine habitat, with all of its cute and awesome creatures! Like I said in my last post, we went and looked at the waterpark first, so that I could take pictures. Then we went and had lunch (some very yummy pizza at the pizza place at Atlantis), went back to our hotel room to change into our bathing suits, and drop off my camera and other valuables since we had our bracelets showing we'd paid for the waterpark and that would be all we'd need, then headed back to do a tour of the Marine habitat then actually go swimming in the waterpark. We'd been told that there was going to be a tour of the Marine habitat at a certain time, but when we showed up there had been a switch shift, and the new people said there wasn't a tour scheduled. I was pretty disappointed for a second, because I really wanted to do the tour and hear all the cool facts, but then one of the women called a guy over and asked him if he could take us around. So we ended up getting our very own personal tour of the habitat, which was even better! The guy knew SO much about all the fish - I know that's their job, but it was still really impressive and very interesting. He also explained all the decorations and how the hotel had created all of this stuff based on the Atlantis myth, how they thought the machines and everything had been used in the Atlantis culture, etc. I know it's not really really, and that it's a myth at the most, but it was still really neat to hear about!
The Marine habitat was in a series of tunnels, walking through from one end to the other, and also going through themed rooms showing inventions, machines, etc. that were thought to have been used by the people of Atlantis. Along the way were the various aquariums with the different fish, the pictures of which you can see below...
This is one of the regular-sized stingrays. You know, the kind that killed the Crocodile Hunter!
This wee little guy is a bonnethead shark. Looks like a mini hammerhead (was about a foot and a half long), but apparently is the only shark (or maybe there's one other, I can't remember) that doesn't need to be moving all the time to have water flowing through the gills or whatever. This shark just sits on the sand, sensing prey along the bottom of the water.
These are mini stingrays, each about a foot and a half in wingspan. They're apparently the one type of rays that live in flocks, so there would be a whole bunch swimming around together in the habitat - pretty cute!
These fish were pretty cool. The silver ones are so thin that they are the only fish not affected by the tides/currents - they can just keep swimming through! And the brown coloured guy was all coloured and scaled on one side, and plain on the other, and both eyes were on the coloured side. Very weird-looking!
Here's a picture of one of the Eagle rays, about 6 feet wingspan I think. The spotting colour on them is really pretty.
Here's a closer-up picture. Sorry about the flash reflection!
This is a goliath grouper. These guys are fascinating! He was about4 feet long, and I think like half a ton or something! They're so big that they can't really swim, so to hunt they let out a sonic boom (seriously!) to sense the fish around them, then they suck it all in!
Here's a picture (I know, not a very good one) of the hammerhead sharks, the ones that were under the rope tunnel in the picture in my last post. I think there were about 4 or 5 altogether in their little pond.
This little guy is a lionfish (from Deuce Bigalow, if any of you recall). Beautiful, but poisonous to humans! Well, and other predators of course. Again, sorry about the reflection of the flash.
This is the only even remotely decent picture that I managed to get of the most awesome (in the true sense of the word) part of the Marine Habitat - Zeus, the Manta Ray. His wingspan was 14 feet, which means that they're going to have to release him soon because at 15 feet he'll be too big for the Habitat. Adam and I were just standing by one of the glass windows, listening to the tour guide speak about the different fish, and then all of a sudden this massive thing swooped around the corner. I believe that I eloquently said "Holy Shit, what is that!?". Since this is the only picture I have of him, and it obviously does not even remotely do him justice, I thought I'd post a few pictures of manta rays that I found on the web.
From Wikipedia.
This picture on the right of the black and white manta is from this website, which has some great pictures of mantas, and information about them as well.
Basically, manta rays are one of the coolest animals in the whole entire animal kingdom, as far as I'm concerned!
This is the predator tunnel. You could walk through, and you were completely surrounded by sharks, barracudas, and other predator fish. Which apparently never eat each other. I guess cause they're fed regularly, so why hunt each other and put all that effort in if you don't have to!
This is a sawtooth shark. When Adam and I first saw it, we were walking around outside above the aquarium (like in the pictures from the last post), and we saw it swimming around in a pond beside the hammerhead shark pond. Except that all we could see was this giant shadow of a terrifyingly shaped creature, and I was totally creeped out. Once I finally saw what it was it was less creepy, but it's still a scary-looking fish!
This was how close you would get to the sharks if you were walking through the predator tunnel. They could see you through the fiberglass or whatever it was, and they'd stare at you and swim straight towards you until they hit the glass. An interesting experience, knowing something's trying to eat you!
Here's a Caribbean reef shark in the predator tunnel. This is the same kind of shark that I swam with when we went snorkelling.
And here's a picture of a barracuda. If ever do get the snorkelling pictures scanned and posted, you'll see why I'm pretty sure that I did see a barracuda when we were snorkelling. It was funny, because when we saw this guy, the tour guide told us that barracudas stalk their prey, and that while you rarely run into them when snorkelling, it's important to remove any shiny jewellery because that will catch their eye and make them think you're a fish. Too bad we didn't know that at the time that we went snorkelling!! Oh well, obviously it ended up okay, but when I realised later that we were probably being stalked by a barracuda, that's a shivery little feeling to get!
As my last picture to post, I will put this one of the predator feeding time. You can see the guy in his wetsuit, just little, at the back of the picture. The dark area under the water is the path where he walks out, to throw fish into the water so that all the predators come up and eat. I also have a video of it, that you can see here.
So that's all of my photos! As for the waterpark photos, there are also some really good pictures of the Marine Habitat at the Atlantis website, so check that out if you'd like some other cool pictures.
After we did the tour of the Marine Habitat, we went swimming, went down the waterslides that I talked about in my last post, and spent a bit of time lying on the beach chairs at the manmade beach. A very fun and relaxing day, in all. That night we had dinner at the buffet, and I took some last minute pictures of the beach and hotel area, so that I could show everyone. I've already posted those pictures in previous posts. After dinner we walked around the Marina Village again, and pretty much just relaxed, and also did some packing up of course.
The next morning, we got up and had our breakfast buffet, then finished packing up all of our stuff. I went down and got our tickets for the Charter bus back to the airport. We left the hotel at 11:30 am, I think (I don't completely remember), and the ride back to the airport took about half an hour. The Bahamas airport, like I mentioned before, is pretty small and dinky. We had to wait about half an hour or so in line, but then we were checked in. After another about half an hour we'd gone through security (the security measures weren't exactly reassuring, let me tell you!), and we had about an hour and a half to sit in the very small waiting area until it was time to board. When we boarded, we walked right out of the waiting room, through the one door leading out, and walked across the tarmac to the stairs going up to the plane! Then we were on board, and starting (on time!) on our trip back to cold, cold Canada. The flight took about 3 and a half hours, going through security and everything was fast because they didn't really stop us at all, since our declarations were way below the maximum spending for a week, and then Jack (Adam's brother) picked us up at the airport and we were home! Well, Adam's home in Thornhill at least. It was a little depressing to be back in the cold after our gorgeous week in the Bahamas, but also nice to be back in familiar territory, too.
And that is the end of our Bahamas adventure!
