Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History Sea Center

 The Sea Center has two floors of exhibits including touch tanks with sharks, rays, sea stars, sea urchins, and sea anemones. Aquarium tanks house jelly fish, a small octopus, seahorses and other marine animals. Most exhibits focus on the animals that live in the unique habitats of the Santa Barbara Channel but there's also a polar bear, one of the animals that is losing sea habitat due to climate change. The admission price is high for this small museum so we were glad that we had a pass.

The Sea Center is located on Sterns Wharf which was built in 1872. It's billed as  the oldest working wooden wharf in California but after reading about the tornado, storms, fires, and boats crashing into it, I wonder if any of it is original. There are 17 businesses on the wharf and free 90 minute parking. 

The Sea Center is accessible. The touch tanks are low so it's easy to reach into the water. The wharf has a wide walkway . Some of the planks are old and worn which makes for a bumpy roll.  

RVs cannot be parked on the streets in Santa Barbara or on the wharf so we parked in the designated RV spaces in the Garden Street lot. From there it's a short walk/roll to the wharf along the paved path that follows the beach. Center  34.41041, -119.68571