Friday, January 21, 2011

Marineland

6 comments:

  1. Many vague and amazing memories of this place from when I was very young. I believe it was one of the first of it's kind. They had a giant central tank with all kinds of life in it, with a few big windows and a lot of small portholes that were freezing to the touch of the little faces pressed against the glass. and of course the smell. A few times a day a guy in a diving suit would go in and feed the aquatics from a pal under water. I also remember some nut-job/performer doing a wire walk act over the experimental shark tank. Maybe he was a Wallenda I don't recall. It was bought, then closed fast. It was abandoned for years. I don't know what is there now'; probably a bad SyFy movie plot.

    ReplyDelete
  2. As I kid vacationing in California, we always managed to miss going to Marineland by visiting some other tourist spot.
    I've been to the one in Florida. One great memory was of these machines that molded plastic into dolphins and dinosaurs - the smell of the plastic was incredibly distinct.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh yeah I have a couple of those plastic things. I think they are actually a wax.
    I remember one melted on the dash of my car. It was of the Earth so it was extra surreal. An several times at the zoo they came out of the machine F'd up and it was a another heartbreak and tragedy. I think they shot Flipper and Creature from the Black Lagoon sequels at the Fla. location.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Duh... Of course, wax !

    Yes, light blue dolphins, light brown T-Rex... slightly warped from the heat in the car.

    I remember seeing 'Flipper' there... my marine biologist skills at 7-years old weren't quite as refined so I'm not if it was the real Flipper.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sometimes I feel that the comments are way complicated than the posts in this blog ... They(comments) are often so personal,cutted-up and required certain knowledge to understand.
    Sometimes they are helpful to me,sometimes they don't,and therefore I have to read they any way.I hope this is not gonna to stresses me out.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Don't think too hard Jim and enjoy the photos.

    ReplyDelete

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.