My Visit to SeaWorld
By Amelia
n February 8, 1998, my cousin, Leah, her
dad, my dad and I headed over to the SeaWorld in San
Diego, California, to check out J.J. the gray whale. We
were very excited and couldn’t wait for this
adventure to begin.
My dad’s friend, Dr. Tom Reidarson, is a veterinarian at SeaWorld and he got us in for free. We also got to go behind the scenes; first, we looked at the sick sea lions that SeaWorld takes care of. Then, we looked at the bottlenose dolphins (we got to touch them!) and visited the tide pool. Lastly, we watched the cu-u-u-u-u-u-te sea otter. He was just like a puppy, only more playful. I would have picked him up and squeezed him, but for two reasons: (1) Tom said that he bites and (2) he was in a cage. He had these dark brown eyes and---
Okay, enough on the sea otter. The whole gang then headed for Tom’s office; he wanted to show us some skeletons of whales. After tha-a-a-t (I’m beginning to sound ridiculous, huh?), Tom left us to look at J.J. by ourselves and take notes (Did you know J.J. has hair on her head?).
| Follow this link to an interview with Dr. Tom Reidarson! |
Later, we met Tom at an Italian restaurant to eat the delicious lunch Leah’s mom had made for us. We then made our way back to J.J.’s tank where Robin Kendall (she’s helping us out) was waiting for us. That was when we got to go back to where J.J.’s handlers work and take some more notes on J.J. (J.J. has such bad breath!) She took us on a tour of rooms SeaWorld uses as classrooms. We got to see some baleen and some Commerson’s dolphins, too.
Then we followed Robin back to her office so we could talk some more. We trooped down to Tom’s office after that and watched a video on J.J.’s rescue. Then, it was break time. We went on the ride "Wild Arctic" and shared some cotton candy.
J.J. logo © 1997 SeaWorld, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission.