LIVE CAMS CAN: PART 2

Libby K. Hanaway
2 days ago
10 min read

Updated: 32 minutes ago

Hi! Did you have time to check out any animal kingdom live webcams from last week? If not, no worries because we are back with more live views today, both under and above the water. Welcome to Live Cams Can: Part 2! [See Part 1 for an intro about what live cams CAN (and cannot) do. IMO, the real-time captivation outweighs any limiting quirks.]

UNDERWATER PLACES

There is something about being underwater — or gazing at things underwater — that transports a person to a different realm. Life below the surface is quiet, peaceful, and mysterious. Children feel it, too, which is why aquariums, both big and small, are kid magnets. Our four-year-old grand-nephew falls under the spell as he keeps a watchful eye on Purply the betta fish and Toot-Toot the snail, his two aquatic buddies who live together atop their family room cabinet.

No aquariums for me, but I do love to snorkel, an activity not commonly available in the desert land of Colorado. The live webcams below are my — and maybe your — best chance to scope out amazing underwater worlds while sitting in a land-locked office or kitchen. So take a deep breath — we’re going down under.

JELLYFISH

Do you like lava lamps? Do you appreciate zoning out for a minute or two while you collect your deep and meaningful thoughts? If so, here's a real-life, live-time lava lamp upgrade for you: jellyfish cams. Fully meditative and mesmerizing.

Out in the wild, you are wise to steer clear of jellyfish. (I still have two scars inside my left wrist from a memorable childhood encounter.) But at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the jellyfish come bearing peace.

NOTE: When you tune in, sometimes all you'll see is a wall of blue before the jellies come into sight. Just wait a beat because when they do come floating across the screen, your whole body will downshift and relax.

CLICK HERE ➡️: LIVE JELLY CAM at the Monterey Bay Aquarium

CLICK HERE ➡️: LIVE MOON JELLY CAM at the Monterey Bay Aquarium

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UNDERWATER KELP FOREST / ANACAPA ISLAND, CA

Here's another zen option. Granted, this live cam view often has no swimming creatures in sight and the water can be quite murky, but it's still worth a visit. Instead of clear, vivid tropical colors, your screen will be filled with the abstract, peaceful swaying of brown-green sea kelp, which is better than it sounds. Turn on Kasey Musgraves' calmly fortifying song "Sway" and you will feel both mellowed and bolstered, come what may.

CLICK HERE ➡️: CHANNEL ISLANDS NATIONAL PARK KELP FOREST CAM

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UNDERWATER PIER, FLORIDA KEYS

(5/5 ⭐️s FROM LIBBY)

Here's another murky-ish underwater scene with my favorite side commentary ... which is why it is probably my favorite live cam of all.

An entire underwater grouper-groupie community follows along this live webcam with eagle-eyed observations during EDT/EST daylight hours. [Noting the volume of comments, E just asked wistfully: "Is this what retirement looks like?"]

The specific location is deliberately unidentified, but the YouTube channel states it's eight feet below a private dock in the Lower Florida Keys. This spot is tended by a mysterious caretaker known only as Aquaman, who regularly snorkels down to rearrange rocks, clean off the camera lens, and perform additional underwater duties. I think he looks a little like Tom Hanks' character from Castaway, but without the beard:

Here's what you can expect if you regularly tune in like the channel's other 19,000 subscribers. (I have just subscribed — come bump the numbers with me 😀.)

The commentary is wholesome, chipper, informative, and often funny, all in line with the site's description as a "family channel, and a stream also viewed by classroom students." View with confidence!

A FEW FRIENDLY COMMENTS FROM RECENT DAYS

"Cute little creature walking up screen. Not the flat worm." (I had never heard of a flatworm; if you are also unfamiliar, click here. They are quite remarkable-looking!)
"Loving this channel 😍"
So happy that the parrots found their way back. They are so cute, Thanks for sharing!" (link mine)
"G'day Cammers 🤓!"

A whole cast of undersea characters — eels, sharks, tarpon, conchs, shrimp, and goliath groupers (including a breakout grouper star named Gerry) — glide across the screen and pop up frequently in commentary conversation:

"Gerry is tolerating the juvi Flagfin Mojarras quite well, whilst they are playing on his front porch." (link mine)
Immediately following: "Gerry shakes fins and says "YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN!"
"does Gerry have a flatworm on his face? Do they hitch rides this way?"

Apparently this is Gerry:

I have not chimed in with a comment yet. I'd like to have a more Viva the Keys-type YouTube handle first: @lib_han_clam? @elizabeth_ann_amphibian? @lib_lou_spotted_grou (per)? Please vote for your favorite or submit your own suggestion 🐡.

In the meantime, come for the sea life / stay for the community chatter. This place is a joy and is sure to be my biggest live feed distraction.

CLICK HERE ➡️: VIVA THE KEYS UNDERWATER LIVE CAM

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UTOPIA VILLAGE CORAL

Here's a slightly more pristine underwater view off Utila, the smallest of the Bay Islands in Honduras. There's no commentary on the screen, making it a more calming v. entertaining scene. According to the site, you'll often see "smaller fish like Wrasse, Sergeant Majors and Trumpetfish" in this view. I'm mainly here for the coral, especially the fan coral, peacefully swaying like the sea kelp above. Here's what I learned on NOAA's page about coral reef ecosystems:

"Because of the diversity of life found in the habitats created by corals, reefs are often called the 'rainforests of the sea.' About 25% of the ocean's fish depend on healthy coral reefs. Fishes and other organisms shelter, find food, reproduce, and rear their young in the many nooks and crannies formed by corals."

AN OPPORTUNITY! In our last post, I mentioned that Travis Kelce adopted three river otters from the Philadelphia Zoo (adopt as in financially support their care, not as in taking home to Cleveland or Kansas City). I just learned you can actually adopt coral as well — never considered that! Here's an adoption opportunity via Reef Renewal USA to help protect the cozy "nooks and crannies" of a coral reef that, in turn, protect so much sea life. A list of additional highly-rated coral conservation organizations you might support is right here.

CLICK HERE ➡️: TOP-OF-WALL UNDERWATER REEF CAM

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AQUARIUM OF THE PACIFIC

Let's face it: with live cams, sometimes you do not have time to wait and see if something spectacular might happen. When you could really use some underwater magic, but it seems unlikely that, say, a porcupine pufferfish might randomly cross your path, here's the solution: the live cam at The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, CA. A contained, filtered aquarium is not a fully authentic underwater setting, but, you know, purity cannot always be a priority.

This crystal-clear view is also ideal if you've always wanted an aquarium but have a not-so-irrational fear of it cracking and then flooding your living room (as once happened to my brother — yeesh). Here, you can try to find more than 1,000 aquatic animals in a 350,000-gallon tropical coral reef setting modeled after the island coasts of Palau. If you'd like your very own live view of Finding Nemo, I'd say this is your place.

CLICK HERE ➡️: TROPICAL CORAL REEF LIVE CAM

at the Aquarium of the Pacific

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ABOVE-WATER PLACES

If your fingers are starting to look pruney, towel off and come back up to dry land. Then grab your brown-bag lunch because we're going on three very different field-trips below.

OLD FAITHFUL, YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK

This camera is very cool. I have never been to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, but now I feel like I have a much better understanding of its geothermal grandeur. Roughly 500 active geysers dot the park, and there's a live camera pointed to its most famed and best-named geyser of all, Old Faithful. Occasionally, you can see wildlife majestically roam across the mineral-crusted ground, however, I just checked back again today, and all you really could see was snow. It's a fickle view that will still reward you with real-time geological splendor.

And thank you, National Park Service, for making it so easy to know when to tune in. Just below the website's live cam view is this handy geyser guide that tells you exactly when to tune in. Here's the schedule for today, 3/14/26, and I have set my phone alarm to 1:29 pm MDT to allow for the 12-minute flextime on each end. I just noticed that the predictions are not available mid-March to mid-April, so be sure to check it out TODAY!

If you'd like to see more of Yellowstone, here's a video introduction with many beautiful views and lots of geothermal info. It's hard to resist this opener, a Rudyard Kipling quote from his visit in 1889: "The Park is just a howling wilderness of 3,000 square miles, full of all imaginable freaks of a firey nature." [Apparently, Kipling was not very impressed with Yellowstone ("Today I am in the Yellowstone Park, and I wish I were dead"), but later — and more happily — he changed his mind for the better.]

CLICK HERE ➡️: OLD FAITHFUL & THE UPPER GEYSER BASIN LIVESTREAM

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BANZAI PIPELINE CAM AT EHUKAI BEACH, HAWAII

Ready to warm up in sunny Hawaii? In our extended family text thread on Saturday, we watched a video clip from one of our group's spring break trip to Hawaii. Did the rest of us develop FOMO about their time in the beautiful Aloha State? Not really, because from their hotel room on Maui, this was the scene: skies dark, wind whipping, palms bending, and rain pelting. I immediately turned to the Banzai Pipeline live cam and sure enough:

Our text thread also included a screenshot of the daily weather forecast for Maui this week. It had a variation of this symbol 🌧️ repeating with high percentages for every day in sight. This tells me:

a.) The week of March 16th might not be the best time to investigate this webcam if you're looking for that classic sunny, hang-ten surfer scene 🤙

b.) The spring breakers will be playing a lot of indoor card games in paradise.

Stormy waves can be awesome to watch, so don't let a splattering of raindrops stop you. [I just checked again, and a dog is now frolicking on the beach, its tail happily wagging in the distance despite the rain. I am taking this as a sign: BE THE DOG, unshackled by circumstance.] And when the sun does make its comeback, you'll be ready for the blue sky, golden sand, and surfers catching the pipeline's enormous rolling waves. Aloha 😎!!

CLICK HERE ➡️: BANZAI PIPELINE CAM ON EHUKAI BEACH / OAHU, HI

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SPACE STATION

I would not call myself much of a space intellect; you could more accurately say I am a general fan with basic/limited knowledge. I love star-gazing, I love the movie Apollo 13, and now I love this live view from the International Space Station, which has been in orbit for 25 years. In the actual 1970s Apollo 13 era of Jim Lovell and Gene Kranz, I'm guessing this kind of live, real-time outer space access — available to anyone, anywhere — might have seemed inconceivable. It's a stellar achievement!

ttps://youtu.be/OAJF1Ie1m_Q

When you tune in to the ISS live cam, you'll see a view of Earth from 260 miles (420 km) above the planet "in a low earth orbit." I put that part in quotes because this information orbits outside my base of knowledge and confidence, and I trust NASA to explain it better than I can. According to the live cam site:

"It takes 90 minutes for the ISS to complete one orbit around the earth [very speedy 🤯]. During that time it passes into the dark side of the earth for 1/2 the time. During the dark period, you'll be able to view lightning storms and the light from towns and cities. Regularly, the ISS will stop transmitting due to a connection loss but will come back up automatically once it establishes the connection again."

There's also a live chat on the side à la Viva the Keys' underwater camera; substitute enthusiastic fish talk with space talk, and there you go.

Sit back and relax with this miraculous, steady, peaceful view of our planet!

CLICK HERE ➡️: INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION

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If you've enjoyed this tour of live cams on the ground, under the sea, and in outer space, you'll want to check out explore.org, a well-vetted clearinghouse of over 200 live cams. Several of the live cam channels linked here in Live Cams Can Part 1 and Part 2 come from this resource (and the live cams of our beloved manatees from back in September did as well). Poking through the explore.org site can give an enchantingly expansive view of what live cams can do.

CLICK HERE ➡️: EXPLORE.ORG

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EXTRA GOOD

ALSO LINKED THROUGH THE EXTRA GOOD PAGE HERE

MONDAY, MARCH 16, 2026

1._GOOD PRODUCTS: Someday I'll do a full post about the wonder of LEGO bricks, sets, and creations — they are absolutely one good thing (or many tiny good things) in terms of both good design and good fun.

C is our resident (formerly resident) LEGOmaster; we still have many old sets in storage, she often puts the LEGO flower sets on her wish lists, and she even saved up for the ethereal realm of Rivendell from The Lord of the Rings. After she read last week's Part 1 post about animal live cams (which opened with superstar sea otters), C sent me a link for a new LEGO offering: a floating mother-and-baby otter duo, now on backorder til March 26. Of course it's on backorder because WHO DOES NOT LOVE AN OTTER 🦦 🤗 🦦?

Check this out and consider it for someone's (or your own) wish list here: LEGO FLOATING SEA OTTERS

2._GOOD WORDS: On Saturday, two different people — Rick and my Oregon friend, Kathy — sent me a link to a new weekly New York Times newsletter dedicated to spotlighting what's good. I'm thanking both of them now and declaring that seeking out good is a bona fide movement!

The Washington Post has its own good-vibes column called The Optimist that I enjoy (an inaugural Extra Good item about the guy who found his wife's wedding ring in a mountain of landfill trash came from The Optimist). And now, NYT writer and editor Melissa Kirsch has announced The Good List, a new venture spotlighting small joys and bits of good she encounters each week. I think Melissa and I could be good friends. For now, I'll just follow along at a respectable distance as she puts more good out into the world.

She writes in her introductory piece:

"I used to think it was silly or sappy to write down the things that I love. But once you start doing it, once you start deliberately taking time out of your day to write down things that are good, you start noticing them everywhere ....

"Once you start tracking what’s good, you notice you feel good. Not all the time. Not so much that you lose your edge. But enough that you start to feel a little more balanced. If we want to be happy — a state that’s become so overhyped and overanalyzed as to become almost meaningless, but stay with me — we need to orient ourselves toward the good."

I'm attaching a gift link to Kirsch's introduction to The Good List here. If you don't have a New York Times subscription, you should be able to follow along with her weekly newsletter through your local library's digital collection. EnJoY — and here's to expanding the search for good ☀️.