FOR THE KIDS : A Mermaid Spins Sea Stories for Children at Ventura Pier : She’s part of an entertaining program to teach youngsters, and their families, about the ocean and its creatures.

People do a double take when Dana Ambarian glides onto the Ventura Pier.

She’s dressed in a mermaid costume, with a shimmery tail, shell necklaces and seaweed around her neck, and a wreath of stars and flowers in her hair. Fishermen and tourists gape as they behold--Marla the Mermaid.

In her regalia, Ambarian gives a 30-minute presentation about the pier, marine mammals and coastal birds.

It’s a new family offering from Ventura’s Community Services Interpretive Outreach Program, the people who do outings and nature classes for school kids and the family.

The pier program is free, and the next one, featuring marine mammals, is Saturday.

With Ambarian decked out in a mermaid costume, these sessions are not textbook dull. She totes along animal puppets and a dolphin costume for kids to dress up in.

The kids and adults get to handle shark jawbones, a rib and vertebra from a California gray whale, and the pelt of a sea otter.

Using a model, Ambarian, along with Susan Williams--both interpretive specialists for the city--will explain how some whales use a sieve-like baleen in their mouths to capture tiny shrimp.

An elephant seal puppet is used to explain how the huge animals congregate on Anacapa Island to have their young.

Ambarian and Williams deliver an environmental message as they go along, citing the harm that can come to these animals through pollution and oil spills.

In the first pier program last month, kids and adults learned a bit of history about the pier, which was built in 1872 as Ventura began emerging as an agricultural and oil region. At more than one-third of a mile long, it carries the glory of being the longest wooden pier in the state. About $3.2 million went into the pier’s restoration two years ago.

If you attend one of these 30-minute programs, you’ll see Wave-Spout, the tuba-like sculpture at the tip of the pier that sometimes sprays a mist of water. Through an opening in the pier, you’ll get a good look at the pilings, where anemone, sea stars and barnacles reside.

The last pier programs of the series will be Aug. 12, at 10, 10:45 and 11:30 a.m. Those will be about birds.

*

If your kids are sliding into summer boredom, Ventura’s Adventures for Kids and its next-door neighbor, Kideos, have a slew of activities through August--most of them free.

Tuesdays at 10:30 a.m., it’s story time and a craft activity. On Saturdays, the craft activity is at 2 p.m., followed by a story at 3 p.m. This Saturday, kids will be making baseball-type cards using their own photos. Thursdays from 7 to 7:30 p.m. are family read-aloud nights.

For information, call Adventures for Kids at 650-9688 or Kideos at 650-5900.

*

It’s Kid’s Day this weekend at Ventura Harbor. That means Ventura Harbor Village will be overrun with such fun kid stuff as pony rides, a petting zoo, face painting, sand sculpting, sidewalk chalk drawing, roving clowns and cartooning. Carousel rides are two for the price of one.

The activities go from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and live music runs from 1 to 4 p.m. both days. For information, call 644-0169.

Details

* WHAT: Family nature programs.

* WHEN: 10, 10:45 and 11:30 a.m. Saturday.

* WHERE: Ventura Pier, near Harbor Boulevard and California Street, Ventura.

* HOW MUCH: Free.

* CALL: 658-4726.